The Dallas Mavericks were bounced from the playoffs in the first round for the second consecutive year. They have lost nine consecutive road playoff games (their last win on the road was to clinch the Western Conference Finals in 2006, which now seems like it was ages ago). They are 3-12 in their last 15 playoff games.

There are a lot of things that aren’t going well. There is plenty of blame to go around. Mark Cuban has addressed one of the problems by firing Avery Johnson, but there is still plenty of blame to be pointed toward the players.

Here are my ratings of the top seven players (not including Devean George, who might not be back next year):

Dirk Nowitzki: A+

Dirk was one of the only bright spots for Dallas this postseason. He stepped up his game from the regular season, high ankle sprain and all. Unlike last year when Golden State made him a non-factor he imposed his will against the Hornets. He averaged a double-double, scoring 26.8 ppg (up 3.2 compared to the regular season) and grabbing 12 rebounds per game (up 3.4). He also average 42.2 minutes played per game (up 6.2 minutes over the regular season). He won’t be in the discussion of MVP candidates this year, but his performance this series should silence those who are critical of him not being clutch.

Brandon Bass: A

Bass played extremely well against his former team. He played 26.6 mins per game (up 6.9 compared to the regular season), shot 96% from the free throw line (only missing one shot), grabbed 6.8 rebounds per game (up 2.4 from the season), and scored 11.6 points per game (up 3.3). He never looked like he gave up on the series, always playing with passion. It looks like the Mavericks might have decent 2^nd-tier player in the making.

Jason Terry: C+

While Bass and Nowitzki were the lone bright spots throughout the series Jason Terry had his moments. His three point shooting was impressive at times and he was one of the main reasons the Mavs even won one game. He basically gave the Mavs the same performance that he gave them all year, but he didn’t do it the whole series.

Jason Kidd: C-

Mark Cuban & Co. pulled off the trade for Kidd for a number of reasons, including his experience in big games, playoffs, and his self-described ability as a closer. Those traits did not come out this year. His assists dropped by 2.7 per game (which may have been partly because of the lackluster performance around him). The biggest flaw in the series was his free throw shooting—he shot 62.5% from the line (down 19%) which led to a drop in scoring to only 8.6 ppg (down 1.3 pts). I’m not sure, however, how much of a difference Devin Harris would have made in this series.

Jerry Stackhouse: D-

The only thing good you can say about Stack’s performance against New Orleans is that he didn’t miss a free throw (5-5). Everything else about his game was terrible. His overall shooting was bad (31.6%) surpassed by atrocious three-point shooting (16.7%) and scoring that most any D-league player could put up (6.2 ppg). Former coach Avery must have had a man-crush on him since he played 20.4 ppg. He had recently been inactive from a groin injury, which may have contributed to his bad performance, but if a player is hurt in a way that it negatively affects his performance he should not be on the floor.

Erick Dampier: F

Erick Dampier might has well have taken the series off. He was a liability on defense being unable to contain either West or Chandler. He averaged 4.2 rebounds per game. I cannot adequately express how terrible this stat alone is. Chris Paul, who is a foot shorter than Dampier and plays point guard, averaged 5.6 per game. That’s embarrassing, but it doesn’t stop there. He shot 41.2%, which may not look bad at first but it is 23.1% worse than he shot during the regular season. It’s also bad when you consider that his shots are typically 5-7 feet from the basket. To top it off, Dampier shot 40% from the free throw line. That’s very Shaq-like. This makes me wonder if Mark Cuban ever regrets not offering Steve Nash the money that he ended up offering Dampier???

Josh Howard: F

This postseason went up in smoke for Howard. His career is starting to look half-baked. Ok, now that’s out of the way, Howard was terrible on and off the court in the playoffs. First, he voluntarily admitted that he smokes pot during the offseason on ESPN Radio about five hours before game three. He passed out flyers about his birthday party to his teammates after game four and reportedly the partly lasted into the wee hours of the night after Sunday’s loss. On the court he wasn’t good either. He shot 29.2% from the floor, 10% from behind the three point line (I might be able to make one of ten shots from there), and his scoring dropped by 7.3 ppg compared to the regular season. All of this leads to one inevitable fact: Howard should be traded. It’s unlikely that the Mavs will get comprabile talent back for him, but it’s looking like he has become a poison to the team.

Even with all this doom-and-gloom, I’m not one who thinks that this team’s future is gone. I fully believe that Dallas will be back in the playoffs next year and may even have home court advantage in the first round. The other teams in the playoffs that Dallas can compete with or beat in a series are Houston, Phoenix, Denver, and Utah. Golden State and Portland are the only two teams who were out that have legitimate playoff hopes.

That said, it was a sad, downward spiral that was the 2007-08 Dallas Mavericks season.

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There has never been, nor will there ever be a more insane last day of the regular season in the NBA. The top two seed are the only ones that have been locked up, and that did not happen until last night. Here are the various scenarios that can still happen in ONE GAME (http://www.nba.com/news/playoff_scenarios_080416.html):

A. HOUSTON-PHOENIX-UTAH-SAN ANTONIO (Seeds 3 to 6) (Higher Seeded team has homecourt in first round unless otherwise indicated)
1. If Houston and San Antonio win:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-Phoenix

2. If Houston, Utah and Phoenix win:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-Houston (homecourt)
6-San Antonio

3. If Utah wins and Phoenix loses:
3-Utah
4-San Antonio
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

4. If San Antonio and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Phoenix (homecourt)
6-Houston

5. If San Antonio wins and Houston and Phoenix lose:
3-San Antonio
4-Utah
5-Houston
6-Phoenix

6. If Utah and Phoenix wins and Houston loses:
3-Utah
4-Phoenix
5-San Antonio
6-Houston

B. DALLAS-DENVER (Seeds 7 to 8)

1. If Dallas wins or Denver loses:
7-Dallas
8-Denver

2. If Denver wins AND Dallas loses:
7-Denver
8-Dallas

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Proverbs 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Ephesians 6:4
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

These two verses are ones that most any Christian parent is no doubt familiar with. In fact, most every parent is at least familiar with the principle that it is a parent’s job to raise their child right so that they can be a mature, responsible adult. As Christians, our job is to raise our kids up to be people of faith. I think most of us are hoping to not mess our kids up to the point that they abandon their faith or become a mass-murderer. That’d be a good start.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit since we found out Brea’s pregnant. There are plenty of examples of kids raised by full-time ministers who hate going to church, don’t believe anything in the Bible, and in many ways turn out to be exactly the opposite of what their parents were hoping they would be. This type of thing somewhat terrifies me.

This leads me to the news story from last week that really got my thinking about this topic. Last Thursday on Oprah’s show they had a “transgender pregnant man” from Oregon on. “He” describes “himself” as “transgender, legally male, and legally married to Nancy.” In other words he is really a she who had a gender-altering surgery, but kept the internal female reproductive organs.

“He” also said “Wanting to have a biological child is neither a male nor female desire, but a human desire.” I agree about the wanting to “have” part of that statement, but not if “have” means giving birth. I don’t know any guy who has ever said they wanted to give birth to a child. In fact, most women I know who are or have been pregnant don’t really look forward to the giving birth portion of the whole ordeal.

I didn’t watch the program, but thinking about the situation made me fairly angry. It’s an obvious attempt to make people more sympathetic toward transgender and homosexual couples. Oprah tries to come across in her show as a spiritually enlightened person, but in reality she is a pluralistic, polytheistic, new age apologist. She thinks that everyone should have the same beliefs that she does.

But the show also troubled me for another reason. I know that my main task in becoming a father for our soon to be born daughter is to guide her into being a woman of faith. I don’t know the person’s story on why she decided she was really a he, but I know there was a father involved in the process at least at some point. What if that dad was a good Christian person? Where did he go wrong?

I really don’t worry too much about our daughter one day doing anything as radical as this person did. But I do wonder how I will respond when she first messes up in a big way. I hope that I will be able to have the grace to forgive her as the father of the prodigal son did (Luke 15:11-31).

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Fans of the Dallas Mavericks have a habit of dogging on the team’s center. Since the days of Shawn Bradley people have found plenty of reasons to complain about the person who is filling this slot. I’ve recently heard people say that Diop was the better center between him and Dampier and were very upset to see him go to New Jersey.

I want to offer a suggestion to these people: stop whining and watch the games. With Bradley, people said that anyone 7′ 6″ tall should be a more dominate player. They thought he should block every shot and get every rebound. If you really watched Bradley play you would see that his presence greatly affected the game. He altered people’s shots more often than he was credited for a block and was a decent rebounder.

These days Dampier gets similar criticism. People think he doesn’t put up big enough numbers, nor does he affect the game as much as he should. I disagree. Dampier has become a force to be reckoned with on the defensive end, even if his stats don’t look that way all the time.

Take a look at the game against Golden State on Wednesday. Dampier’s stats were decent: 11 rebounds and 3 blocks. But was more impressive was what happened when he was off the floor. He first went to the bench with 4:28 left in the first quarter. Up to that point the Warriors had ZERO offensive rebounds. He came back into the game with 6:00 left in the second. During that stretch Golden State collected EIGHT offensive rebounds. At the end they only had three total offensive rebounds when Damp was on the floor.

This type of influence in a game does not show up on a stat sheet. Dampier did not collect every possible defensive rebound when he was on the floor, but he took up enough space to keep Golden State away from the boards and allowed his teammates to pick up boards as well. It also kept Golden State from getting second-chance scoring opportunities. His presence was one of the big reasons the Mavs were able to dominate this game.

Dallas needs him to stay out of foul trouble for the remainder of this year if they want to have a chance to make some noise this post-season, not to mention getting in the playoffs in the first place.

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Check out this video of Bruce Bowen kicking the Hornets’ Chris Paul. The amazing thing is that Paul was called for an offensive foul and Bowen didn’t get called for anything. The NBA needs to suspend him for at least one game.

Can’t see the video above? Click here.

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Today’s NBA Daily Dime is all about the blunder in logic that Avery had. Both Marc Stein and Jalen Rose thought it was a terrible decision to bench Kidd in the last 30 seconds. Take a look at the poll below or read the story yourself.

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The Mavericks lost to San Antonio and Jason Kidd was on the bench when it mattered most, but would it really have made a difference if he was in the game? Let’s take a look at some pictures.

First off, take a look at the clock. Kidd was on the bench with Dallas down by two points and 12.7 seconds left in the game. He was actually out for the last 30 seconds or so, but this picture tells the story.

Next up, take a look at the defense. Count the defense and take a look at what they are doing. All five Spurs are watching Terry with the ball. This woud have been the perfect chance to catch them off-guard.

Take a look at Josh Howard. There is no defender within 12 feet of him. Terry should have tossed him the ball and let him either shoot, pass to the open man in the corner, or drive to the basket. Kidd no doubt would have dished the ball in a heartbeat.

But Terry didn’t pass. He held on to the ball and waited for almost five seconds for someone else to move to create a play. Dirk saw this, so he came over to setup a pick and roll.

Dirk set the pick and roll up really well, so what is supposed to happen here is Terry passes the ball to Dirk and let him either drive to the hoop (remember the move he made to draw a foul from Ginobili in the 2006 playoffs?) or shoot a wide-open jump shot.

The opportunity to move the ball didn’t end with the non-pass to Dirk. Terry moved to the free-throw line, drew in Manu Ginobili, which would have been another chance to pass to Howard, who could have swung the ball over to Stackhouse (whose defender most likely would have come over to guard Howard) or drove to the basket. But, again, no pass.

Lastly, even when Terry was up in the air with Bowen right on him, he still had people wide open for good looks. Take a look at it. Dirk has both his hands up waiting for a pass to Terry’s right. Howard is still open at the three point line. Stackhouse is now WIDE OPEN, since his defender decided to come over and help guard the basket. But again, it didn’t happen.

In the end, Avery’s decision to bench Kidd may not have been the reason the Mavs lost, but him being on the bench ended up being the wrong decision. It’s a mistake that I really hope Avery doesn’t make again.

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