Here at Sparty and Friends, we have reached NBA preview time. There will be one team per work day leading up to the season opener (Celts vs. Cavs, October 28th at 8pm on TNT). The teams are ordered by record starting with last place and going up through the non-playoff teams, followed by the playoff teams in order of elimination (or lack there of in the Celtics’ case). You can find the full list of our previews here.  We’ve knocked off the Heat, got hate mail about the Thunder, had a guest writer for the Express Grizz, praised the T-Wolves marketing team, got lazy and had a Clip show, went to the circus that is the Knicks roster, took the Buck by the horns antlers, met a cat named “Bob”, ran with the Bulls and a “(pat)phish”, we put it in the Net, kept Pace, put the King in check, Blazed the Trail, Warrior’d up, Nugg’d it, rapped with the Raptors, and now we cowboy up with the Mavs…

The Dallas Mavericks have gained themselves the reputation of a bunch of chokers. In all fairness though, they deserve it. Losing to a #8 seed in the first round two years ago followed by a five game out in the first round the next year even though you thought that you made the trade to help you win in the playoffs? Bad. Getting beat by Chris Paul who happens to play the same position as the guy you traded for in order to win in the playoffs but instead looked really old and bad? Worse. Firing your coach because he might actually be part of the problem? That actually made sense. Hiring Rick Carlisle to replace him? Who the heck knows if that’ll work? For what I do know about this team you have to take a journey with me though. We call this journey the jump.

Before we get to my opinions, let’s get down to the facts…

Last Year’s Record: 51-31 (2nd to last in Southwest Division, 7th in Western Conference, 10th in the NBA)

Coach: Rick Carlisle

Expected Starting Lineup: Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Dirk Nowitzki, Eric Dampier

Expected Bench Contributors: Jose Juan Barea, Jerry Stackhouse, DeSagana Diop

Look at me! I'm a... power forward?

Well, this team has talent. What they are doing with it is a little curious, but some teams don’t even have the talent to misuse, so therefore they must have taken the first step. Jason Terry had always been a point guard until they traded for Kidd last year. Now he’s a shooting guard. I’m not saying he can’t play there, I’m just saying that he hasn’t done it before. Then of course you have Dirk playing power forward. Let’s get something straight; the dude is a wing player. I don’t care that he is seven feet tall. And why should I? He doesn’t. Then you have Josh Howard, who actually plays the wing, but has always played small forward instead of shooting guard because he was 6″7 in college and there are very few guards that tall in the NCAA. Now some of you may know that I am not a big fan of Jason Kidd. Please keep in mind that I am being as objective as possible in the following paragraph.

Jason Kidd stinks. I will now place that in numerous relative contexts. Jason Kidd stinks compared to Jason Kidd five, ten, and fifteen years ago. Jason Kidd stinks in the sense that he is no longer a starting point guard in today’s NBA. Jason Kidd stinks in the sense that his playing of the point guard position instead of Jason Terry is hurting the Mavericks. Jason Kidd does not stink compared to me or other normal, non-NBA’ed human beings.

Now, I am not saying that he should retire or anything. I am simply advocated his move to the bench. Some people will say that is ridiculous with the salary he has and what they traded in order to acquire him last season. I will point those people to the Los Angeles Dodgers. They have Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre. Together, those two make the gross national product of a small country. Joe Torre let them play because of that reason for the first half of the year until they were hurting the team and then he benched them. The same is true for Kidd. Watching last year’s Hornets/Mavs series was like watching me play against a fat 8th-grader. The fat 8th-grader/Kidd was getting killed by CP3/Me. (Note: I may be closer to CP3 than Jason Kidd is to a fat 8th-grader.) The difference in speed on both ends of the court was embarrassing. What made it an even bigger embarrassment was when they were on the Olympic Team together and Kidd started over CP3 because of “experience” or whatever. Luckily, Coach K was just enough smarter than a can of paint to have CP3 and Deron Williams play when it actually mattered. Listen, sports is a business. Mark Cuban has to know that better than anybody. Kidd should be coming off the bench. If they started (in order) Terry, Howard, Dirk, Diop, and Dampier, they would be a better team. But we have to respect our elders or some stupid thing like that.

I can't believe I just said that!

On to Josh Howard. This guy is an idiot. Like a real idiot. Not like Manny Ramirez who is goofy, but an actual idiot. The dictionary defines “idiot” as a noun meaning “an utterly foolish or senseless person” and I think that is an accurate description of Josh Howard. How else do you explain the things he’s done? The guy has voluntarily and for no reason admitted to marijuana use on live radio, been caught street racing and was arrested, and most recently cursed at the flag while claiming that it was racially motivated. Simply put; idiot. Good player though. Good enough to have received an invite to USA basketball camp, idiot enough to turn it down. Something tells me he won’t be getting another invite.

How will the Mavericks do? Hard to tell. I can say that they will be a good team and I will probably be right. They won’t be a great team because they simply don’t have the bench to sustain an injury or even to just play a high number of minutes if a starter gets in foul trouble. I do have a weird feeling that they could be the team with the unforeseen collapse. Last year it was the Bulls, this year it could be them. I’ll still predict the playoffs, but not by much.

Your Youtube clip for today is going to be Sarah Palin saying maverick a lot. Enjoy…

OK, just kidding. That was Tina Fey anyway. But Palin did say “maverick” a lot in the actual debate. Here’s your real Youtube clip. It’s Kidd getting CP3′ed.

Prediction: 47-52 wins, 7-10 in the Western Conference

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