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DALLAS – Rick Carlisle probably can’t make it through dinner with his wife and daughter without discussing the Dallas Mavericks’ need to improve defensively this season.

Without prompting, Carlisle brought up defense seconds into his press conference at media day. It was the sole focus of the Mavs’ opening practice of training camp. He readily admits that it’s an obsession for him.

“I just look at the roster and I just know that has to be our emphasis,” Carlisle said. “We’re going to work hard on our offense, but our major emphasis has got to be the defensive end.”

There’s no point in dancing around the issue. The Mavs, who tied for 18th in the NBA in defensive efficiency last season (107.1 points allowed per 100 possessions), must allow significantly fewer points to have a prayer of being a playoff factor.

The challenge for Carlisle’s Mavs: Accomplish that mission with a starting lineup that is flawed at that end of the floor.

Dirk Nowitzki has never been shy about acknowledging that his athletic limitations make individual defense difficult for him. That’s also the case for point guard Jose Calderon. Monta Ellis usually ranks among the league leaders in steals, but he’s been a high-risk, high-reward defender whose size (6-foot-3, 185 pounds) puts him at a significant disadvantage against most shooting guards.

“We’ve all got to pick up the slack for them,” said Shawn Marion, the one player on the roster who has earned a reputation for being a defensive stopper. “It’s a team effort. We’ve got to collectively help each other.”

That’s what made signing Samuel Dalembert, the last real interior defensive presence available in free agency, so important this summer. He understands that he’s being paid primarily to rebound and help mask the defensive flaws of other Mavs.

“That’s the piece the team needs,” said Dalembert, who has career averages of 8.1 rebounds and 1.8 blocks per game as a part-time player. “I watched them last year. They have no problem scoring, but defensive-wise, they want to be back where they were three years ago. That’s our focus. That’s our goal.

“You’re not going to try to make a guy who has not been a defensive player a defensive player overnight, but what you can do is you can make them feel comfortable. Give me your best and if you get beat, I’ve got your back. That’s the key.”

The Mavs are counting on Dalembert to be the anchor of the defense, but it’s unrealistic to expect him to clean up messes on a consistent basis. That’s why “collectively” is a buzzword in Mavs camp.

"On paper, we don’t have a group of guys that look like individual defensive stoppers," Carlisle said. "I mean, Shawn Marion is still one of the best guys in the game. Vince [Carter] has good analytic numbers on defense. Dirk is better than you think he is on defense. But we don’t have any first- or second-team all-defensive guys on our team, so we have to do it collectively."

Carlisle repeatedly cites what he considers the Mavs’ most troubling defensive stat from last season: They allowed the second most made free throws in the NBA. It’s proof that they were a poor perimeter defensive team that couldn’t stop teams from attacking off the dribble without fouling.

That’s one facet of defense that Carlisle will hammer during camp and continue harping on all season. Another is 1-on-1 defense. Transition defense – and not giving up good looks on 3s early in the shot clock – is another.

It’s about understanding the concepts of the Mavs’ defensive scheme, which was good enough to win a title in 2011, and accepting the sacrifices necessary to make the whole more than the sum of the parts.

“It starts with an attitude and an understanding of how important it is,” Carlisle said. “I’ve got to make sure guys know how important it is. That’s the starting point.”

DALLAS -- For Monta Ellis, “efficient” might as well be a four-letter word.

He’s become a sort of analytics antihero the past couple seasons, a model of scoring inefficiency. Frankly, Ellis is sick and tired of hearing about it, which he made clear by shaking his head and chuckling when the subject was broached during the Dallas Mavericks’ media day Monday.

“I’m going to get criticized for what I do anyway,” Ellis said. “The only thing I can do is laugh it off because there’s a lot of guys that take a lot of bad shots in this league. A lot of bad shots. Don’t nobody want to talk about them, but everybody talks about shots that Monta take[s]. The only thing I’m going to do is take the punches and prove everybody wrong.”

PODCAST
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett at Mavericks media day to discuss his expectations for the upcoming season. Listen

There are a lot of guys in the NBA who take bad shots, but precious few put up more bricks than Ellis did in his final season with the Milwaukee Bucks, which explains why he settled for signing a three-year, $25 million deal with the Mavs that was far shy of his asking price when free agency opened.

Only former Bucks backcourt partner Brandon Jennings had a lower field goal percentage than Ellis (41.6) among players who averaged at least 15 points per game. Ellis’ 3-point percentage (28.7) was the lowest among qualifiers. And, according to ESPN Stats & Information, Ellis had the worst field goal percentage on off-the-dribble jumpers (32.3) among players who launched at least 250 of those shots.

If that continues this season, Ellis will be a terrible investment for the Mavs. But his contract could end up being a bargain if Ellis, whom Dirk Nowitzki excitedly describes as the most explosive teammate he’s ever had, is willing to do what it takes to drastically improve his scoring efficiency.

“What I’m saying is, I’m going to play Monta basketball,” said Ellis, who has a career average of 19.4 points per game on a respectable 45.6 percent shooting from the floor. “If y’all want to criticize, criticize.”

Asked to clarify what exactly “Monta basketball” is, Ellis exhibits that he gets it, as much as he disdains the discussion.

“Getting out, running, taking the shots that’s appropriate and attack the basket more,” Ellis said. “I think over the past few years I got to a point where I was settling for jump shots. At first, I attacked the basket, never was the high-end guy to shoot 3s. I think I put a lot more 3s into my game, so I’m going to get back to attacking the basket, getting out there and being a one-man fast break and bring pace to this team.”

Count on coach Rick Carlisle hammering that mentality into Ellis’ head.

Carlisle spent time this summer working with Ellis on his jumper and making adjustments regarding balance and mechanics, but the Mavs don’t want Ellis launching a bunch from long distance. They definitely don’t want Ellis to average four 3-point attempts per game, as he did last season, especially if many of them are contested and/or off the dribble.

Ellis has proven he’s capable of lighting it up without exhibiting the shot discretion of a lovesick sailor. In 2007-08, Ellis shot 53.1 percent from the floor while averaging 20.2 points per game for the Golden State Warriors, attempting less than one 3-pointer per game. Not coincidentally, the burden of the scoring load didn’t fall on Ellis’ shoulders that season, when Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson also averaged more than 20 points for the 48-win Warriors.

The Mavs want Ellis to do what he does best: attack the basket. They believe he’ll have ample opportunities to do so while playing with Nowitzki, the sweetest shooting 7-footer of all time, and Jose Calderon, a pass-first point guard who led the league in 3-point percentage last season.

“We’ve got to put him in the right situations and positions,” Carlisle said. “That’s going to give Monta opportunities to find space. When you get him moving toward the rim with space, he’s a great finisher. He can get to the free throw line, and he’s an underrated assist guy. I think all that works.”

If it works as well as the Mavs hope, the word “efficient” might not sound so offensive to Ellis.

DALLAS – There are no guarantees with 35-year-old knees that have logged more than 45,000 NBA minutes and many, many more in international ball.

That being said, Dirk Nowitzki has done everything in his power to prevent knee problems from sabotaging his statistics for a third consecutive season.

PODCAST
Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joins Fitzsimmons and Durrett at Mavericks media day to discuss his expectations for the upcoming season. Listen

Dirk’s decline since the Dallas Mavericks’ 2011 title run has been well chronicled. He admittedly wasn’t adequately prepared for the end of the lockout and hectic schedule that ensued, leading to knee soreness and swelling and needing an early-season sabbatical to work his way into shape by his Hall of Fame standards. After a summer of hard work, Nowitzki was surprised by swelling in his knee last preseason, then missed the first two months of the regular season while recovering from arthroscopic surgery.

Now he’s coming off his two least productive seasons since establishing himself as an NBA superstar. Not coincidentally, the Mavs don’t have a playoff win over the last two years.

All that made for an extraordinarily determined Dirk during an extremely long offseason in Dallas, which missed the playoffs for the first time in a dozen years.

“I feel good now,” Nowitzki said during Monday’s media day on the eve of training camp. “Going into camp, I did a lot of work. I started working out in May, probably the earliest for a long, long time. Hopefully I’ll feel good going into the season and I can stay injury-free.

“But I feel now better than I have at any point last year, so I think that’s very encouraging to myself, it’s very important also from a mental standpoint and hopefully I can show it.”

Added coach Rick Carlisle: “He’s a guy that has such love and respect for the game and such pride in his own performance and taking responsibility in winning and losing for this franchise. He knows how important his health is to his game and our game and all of us and all of our fans. This is serious business. His effort has completely matched up with the level of importance.”

The Mavs failed in their two-year quest to make Nowitzki the second-best player on the roster, settling for signing Monta Ellis, Jose Calderon and other complementary players after failing to hook big fish Dwight Howard and Chris Paul in free agency.

But the biggest misconception about the under-the-radar Mavs, according to owner Mark Cuban, is that they no longer have a superstar. He’s convinced that Nowitzki, who had an 11-season All-Star streak snapped last season, can return to elite form in 2013-14, pointing to the late-career success as historically great power forwards such as Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett and Karl Malone as proof of the possibility.

Dirk acknowledges that the doubts about his ability to still perform to the standard he set for himself served as ample summer motivational fodder.

“Competitors, they always find ways to motivate themselves,” said Nowitzki, who averaged 17.3 points and 6.8 rebounds in his down 2012-13 campaign, including 18.9 points and 7.7 rebounds after the All-Star break. “When I first got here, ‘He can’t do it, he’s not ready for the NBA,’ then once I established himself, ‘He can’t win it all.’ So I think there’s always stuff you can use as motivation and competitors use it the right way.

“So yeah, I’m fired up and hopefully I can show it and still put up a decent season.”

Decent by Dirk’s standards means dominant. That’s the Nowitzki the Mavs need to have any hope of accomplishing their mission of making playoff noise again.

You thought Americans didn't give Dirk Nowitzki his due?

It took Nowitzki carrying the Mavericks to the 2011 title, earning the Finals MVP award in the process, for him to be recognized as one of the all-time great players in NBA history. He shattered the soft Euro stereotype with clutch moment after clutch moment during the Mavs' magical championship run.

Now, Americans give Nowitzki the kind of respect fit for a man who has earned 11 All-Star invitations, an MVP and a Finals MVP. In our part of the world, he's considered unquestionably the best European basketball product ever, as well as one of the elite power forwards of all-time.

Apparently, Europeans aren't quite as enamored with Nowitzki. A HoopsHype.com survey of 38 Eurobasket players ranked Nowitzki as fifth among the all-time best Euro ballers.

The four ranked ahead of Nowitzki: Drazen Petrovic, Tony Parker, Arvydas Sabonis and Dejan Bodiroga.

Bodiroga, a Serbian, never played in the NBA. Petrovic, Parker and Sabonis have a combined 25,007 NBA points -- 44 fewer than Nowitzki.

Clearly, the players based their votes primarily on accomplishments in international ball. Nowitzki dragging Germany to the 2008 Olympics apparently wasn't that impressive.

In the Olympic summer of 2016, Dirk Nowitzki will be 38 years old.

But Nowitzki says he'll indeed consider a return to international basketball that summer if he thinks his return to the German national squad can clinch a spot for his homeland in the 2016 Olympics in Brazil.

"If I'm still healthy enough and we have a chance to qualify, then I'd consider it," Nowitzki told ESPN.com late Monday.

Nowitzki was responding to statements made earlier Monday by Germany coach Frank Menz, who told ESPN.com's Mark Woods after Germany's elimination from the EuroBasket tournament in Slovenia that the face of the Dallas Mavericks has left open the possibility of a national-team return if the squad continues to progress.

Germany failed to advance past the group stage of this month's EuroBasket but turned heads with an upset of heavily favored France in its Group A opener. The Germans also prevented Israel from advancing out of the group with a narrow win in Monday's Group A finale despite playing without Nowitzki, NBA veteran center Chris Kaman and Atlanta Hawks rookie guard Dennis Schroeder.

Nowitzki, to this day, regards qualification for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing -- with Kaman's assistance -- as an achievement on par with the NBA championship he won in Dallas in 2011. It's Menz's belief that adding the likes of Nowitzki and Schroeder to the promising cast of unheralded shooters Germany has assembled would put the Germans back in Olympic contention.

(Click here to read the full story.)

ARLINGTON, Texas – Jerry Jones showed a lot of love for LeBron James, inviting the NBA MVP to be his guest at the Cowboys’ season opener Sunday night, when James roamed the field during pregame warmups and watched the win over the Giants from a luxury suite.

Cowboys fans, on the other hand, didn’t exactly give King James a warm welcome.

The AT&T Stadium sellout crowd, which obviously included a lot of Mavericks fans, booed when James was shown on the massive video boards during a timeout in the second half. James playfully took off his Cowboys cap and pointed to it in a I-come-in-peace kind of gesture, but that didn’t do much to quiet the boos.

Apparently the 2011 Finals – and the mocking of a sick Dirk Nowitzki by James and Dwyane Wade – are still fresh on folks’ minds in the Metroplex.

The boos didn’t seem to spoil the night for James. His Cowboys won, and he celebrated the victory by running pass routes with his friends on the field after midnight.

James, a former high school football star, posted a picture on Instagram of him dunking over the crossbar.

Would definitely be my 1st TD celebration! #DreamChasing #LetsFly http://t.co/OiuAzpn4Mx

— LeBron James (@KingJames) September 9, 2013

 

The thought of James’ NFL potential has certainly crossed the Cowboys’ mind. Dez Bryant said this summer he thought James could be “a beast” in the NFL with a couple of weeks to prepare. On his KRLD-FM radio show Friday, Jones joked that he wished he could get James suited up to play tight end.

Maybe that’s the only way James could win over fans around here. Heck, these folks cheered for Terrell Owens when he wore a star on his helmet.

Dirk Nowitzki has recorded his own version of the Geico "Hump Day" commercial to help the Mavericks sell season tickets.

When speaking to ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM’s Galloway and Company back in late July, Mark Cuban vehemently denounced naysayers of Dirk Nowitzki who said that the Mavs forward's time as an elite player was done. The doubters have fuel based on the fact that Nowitzki had his lowest scoring average since his rookie season in 1998-99 and had to battle back from knee surgery.

"Knock on wood, if we stay healthy, I think people are just missing Dirk in ways they shouldn't," Cuban said in late July. "Like I've been telling him, Karl Malone won an MVP at 35, and there's no reason why he can't be considered in an MVP conversation at 35.”

An indirect way to ensure Nowitzki is cranking on cylinders is to have a John Stockton-like player. Enter Jose Calderon.

“He’s one of the best ball distributors in the game,” Cuban said of Calderon during the team’s introductory press conference last week. “He’s going to open up the court.”

The 31-year-old Calderon will be handed the keys to the flow offense. While he doesn’t carry a lot of playoff experience, he’s widely regarded as one of the most efficient point guards the league has, holding career averages of 10.1 points and 7.2 assists. He’s coming off a season where he split time between Toronto and Detroit and averaged 11.3 points, 7.1 assists and just 1.7 turnovers while shooting a league-best .461 percent from 3-point range.

Bringing an influx of basketball IQ to the roster with Calderon should make life easier for Nowitzki.

(Read full post)

The Dallas Mavericks' mission for the last two years has been to make Dirk Nowitzki the second-best player on their roster. After missing out on the top free agents, the Mavs have again reloaded their roster with hopes that they found the next-best thing: a surefire sidekick.

"I'm actually coming to be Dirk's sidekick," new guard Monta Ellis said at the team's introductory press conference Thursday afternoon.

Ellis, 27, chuckled when asked if he is ready to step up and have Nowitzki as his sidekick.

The guard spent a season and a half in Milwaukee, and it seemed like he never could click with his new teammates as he did when he was with the Golden State Warriors. Ellis said he had to do "60 percent of everything" with his previous teams. Now with the Mavs, he's hoping he can just be a piece to the puzzle, alongside Nowitzki.

"It's a great opportunity," Ellis continued. "It's a new beginning. I'm looking forward to it."

Mavs coach Rick Carlisle echoed a statement he made to ESPNDallas.com's Tim MacMahon earlier this summer when he said that he's probably the fastest player that has ever put on a uniform in Mavs history. And he's looking forward to what Ellis can bring as a running mate with Nowitzki.

"He's a very good play-maker," Carlisle said of Ellis. "When you play with a guy like Dirk, there's going to be more space on the floor, which is going to help Monta. His speed is going to compliment Dirk well and he's going to compliment the rest of our team."

The Mavs will need just about every single one of the new players introduced on Thursday to be a contributor and take the pressure off Nowitzki, but the brunt of the responsibility will fall on Ellis' shoulders as the Mavs attempt to once again become a legitimate playoff contender.

Dallas needs Ellis to deliver with his ability to get to the rim and play off the pick-and-roll. They have seen what J.J. Barea can do to an opposing defense when he works in that setting. Unfortunately, they also saw what can happen when someone like Darren Collison tries to work off the same situations. The hope is that Ellis' ability to be an offensive catalyst will bring that added dynamic to the team's "flow" offense that they've missed for quite some time. Based on what he's heard through communication with his coach, Ellis likes the potential that can come within the offense.

"I think the system that coach has is a great one for me," Ellis said.

With the proper direction, the hope is that the system allows the dynamic guard to get back to his days in Golden State where he averaged well over 20 points per game, while looking to reign in his shot attempts as he took the fourth-highest amount of shots last season. Out of the top 10 volume shooters in the league, Ellis' shooting percentage (.416) was the worst.

Many analysts assume the cast of characters the Mavs have brought on board are mainly a group of guys who have been written off, thrown under the bus and left for basketball purgatory. Naysayers or not, the new shooting guard is looking ahead with optimism.

"It's a great organization and a great team that we have," Ellis added. "I'm very excited and I always dreamed of playing with an organization as good as Dallas, so to be here and play with a Hall of Famer like Dirk makes everything easier and much smoother. Hopefully we can get back to Dallas Mavericks basketball and competing the way we should."

Whether he's the main man or riding in the sidecar along with Nowitzki, Ellis will have to do what he can do best: Score.

The most entertaining part of Mark Cuban's 3,000-plus-word post on blogmaverick.com might be the Superman Origins-inspired video he shared that was part of the Mavs' Dwight Howard recruiting pitch.

Some other excerpted highlights from Cuban's stream-of-consciousness prose:

On the post-lockout decisions: "All my thoughts on the new CBA have been well chronicled elsewhere, so i won’t revisit them here. But what we have not discussed publicly was our concern of bringing back an older team in a shortened season. We basically saw the 2011-12 season as a throw away no matter who we signed. With out the time to prepare and get their bodies ready, throwing a team with with an older starting lineup right into the fire was going to be tough. Young guys can walk into an NBA game any day of the year. Get to your mid 30s, not so much. So to bring the gang back , we would basically be losing a year. When you look at keeping together an older team and the first year after your championship is a lost year, it’s hard to justify keeping an older team together. But we were the champs. That meant a lot.

"It also meant that if we kept everyone together we would have to make do with our existing roster. We would have little room to add new players. In particular we would not be in position to add someone who could come in and be a cornerstone for our future. IMHO we would be stuck with an aging team and not be in a position to make a big impact on our roster."

On sticking with Dirk Nowitzki: "Our culture is one of the reasons I won’t trade Dirk.

"When you turn your team upside down and try to figure out what the culture of the team is, you take the greatest risk a team can take. Dirk sets the tone for our team. He works as hard, if not harder than anyone. He helps our younger players understand what he expects and what they need to do to excel. On the court he is selfless. He would rather not have to score a point if we would win the game any way. He would rather pass the ball and let anyone else score than be forced to take the shot. Until its the time of the game where we need a point. Then he is ready to step up as often as we need it. But he knows, that his impact on a game is far more important than any averages or what appears in the box score. That mindset. That selflessness. His work ethic is something I want to be in place long after he has retired. But to do that we have to transition with him, not in a void.

"It is also the reason I believe that you don’t just blow up a team. Go back the past 10 years and look at all the teams that traded their best player. There aren’t a lot of quick trips to the finals to point to as examples."

On trying to sign Dwight Howard: "We had hoped that Chris Paul may be available He wasn’t. So Dwight Howard was our first target once again.

"Let me address here the inevitable question of Dwight vs Mavs culture. We saw it as somewhat of a risk, but felt like because Dwight by all appearances and checking we did, is a good guy and with our support systems we believed we could make it work. if not, he was obviously a very trade-able asset. But, as everyone knows, we didn’t sign him. He went to the Rockets. I do have to say the meeting with Dwight was very interesting. He is a smart guy. Much smarter than people give him credit for. He is also a very, very good listener. Unlike most people, he spent far more time listening than talking. And he had the best response to an opening question that I have ever heard from a player, or anyone for that matter. When we asked him what his goal was, his response was very specific ” I want to be Epic” . Which was a perfect lead in to the video we created for him"

On the "popular" rebuilding process: "In today’s game it appears that the popular path to build a team is to put together a group of young players that you hope will develop to their full potential and potentially lose a lot of games so you have a chance to pick the next Kevin Durant, John Wall or Kyrie Irving or Blake Griffin et al.

"Then you have to do it again at least one more season , if not more, because any one of those players is not enough to win a championship. They are all great players now, but it takes time for them to develop into great players. THen you have to put the right players around them in order to become a championship contending team. This may be the exact right approach for teams to take to build a championship. You never know until you know.

"What I do know, at least what I think i have learned from my experiences in business is that when there is a rush for everyone to do the same thing, it becomes more difficult to do . Not easier. Harder. It also means that as other teams follow their lead, it creates opportunities for those who have followed a different path.

"I see quite a few teams taking what appears to be the same approach to building a team. I can understand why they are taking this approach. In the current CBA the value of a player chosen in the draft can be considerable because of the defined contract terms. And if you put together some great young players, it is very enticing to want to keep those players together for a long period.

"But I also know that even if you have the worst record in the NBA, you may not get the top pick and even if you do, there is a material chance you pick the wrong player , or it just happens to be a draft when there are not any IDENTIFIABLE superstar potential players at the top of the draft.

"In other words , while it may be popular i think the quantity of teams taking the same approach makes it more difficult to build a team in this manner."

On the Mavs' future: "We went out and signed what I think (I know I’m always positive about our players, but this time I’m REALLY POSITIVE [smiley face emoticon] , are a great group of players. We got players that we think fit our culture. That have a skill set that will allow us to be successful , that complement each other, fit well with Rick’s system and can be a good team

"We also feel like we have some players that will be far better on our team than they were on previous teams. I like our ability to work with what i call “fallen angels”. Players who are traded or left unsigned because everyone in the league thinks that they can only be the player they saw in another organization. We have taken players like Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Brandon Wright, Tyson Chandler and you can even say Vince Carter among others that were perceived as having this problem or that problem and had them contribute in new ways that were beyond what the “experts” expected.

"We pay less attention to what they did in their last system than what we believe they will do in our system with our group of players. We are not always successful as last year pointed out, but we have a good track record.

"If we stay healthy, I think we can have a good team. How good ? I don’t make predictions. I do believe that by having a core of players that we can grow and develop with, and cap room in the upcoming season and what we feel is the ability to develop and improve the performance of our players, we are in a good position for this year and for the future. We have been hurt by not having a core of players in place that free agents see as teammates they want to play with. THat shouldn’t be the case next year.

"In addition, because of all the financial restrictions that the new CBA puts on teams, I believe more teams are going to be blown up and the new popular approach will be adopted by more teams. Which in turn will make that approach even more difficult to be successful with. Hopefully this will create opportunities for the Mavs to add new players either via cap room or through trade that get us back in to the Finals and rewards our fans with another ring."

The Mavericks envision DeJuan Blair as a better-fitting version of Elton Brand.

Like Brand last season, the Mavs will count on the 6-foot-7, 265-pound Blair to provide a healthy dose of toughness as a vertically-challenged, wide-bodied banger who will play the vast majority of his minutes at center. They believe Blair, who averaged 7.8 points and 5.8 rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game during his four seasons in San Antonio, addresses a glaring need for some nastiness on the roster.

They also think the 24-year-old Blair, who is on the verge of signing with Dallas, fits better with the Mavs’ personnel on the offensive end than the 34-year-old Brand did. The reasoning: Blair is a roller; Brand is a popper.

That’s particularly important when playing with Dirk Nowitzki, the premier jump-shooting power forward in NBA history. The threat of Nowitzki knocking down midrange jumpers creates a lot of opportunities to score with hard rolls to the basket, and some easy buckets off those rolls help give Dirk a little more room to work.

See the Mavs’ success with Brandan Wright and Nowitzki on the floor together as evidence. Dallas averaged 108.8 points per 48 minutes with that pair last season.

The Mavs also think Blair can be compatible with Wright, who would be the power forward in that pairing, and even in certain situations as a power forward with Samuel Dalembert playing center or as a center with Shawn Marion as a power forward.

Blair isn’t nearly as good of a shot-blocker as the long-armed Brand. However, Blair is a savvy defender who takes a lot of charges and is willing to throw his weight around on the block.

Blair is also an upgrade as a rebounder. He has a career average of 11.1 rebounds per 36 minutes, which is better than Brand’s best season on the boards.

Brand was a bargain addition for Dallas last season, when the Mavs paid him $2.1 million after acquiring him via amnesty waivers. With a veteran-minimum salary, Blair would be even better value.

Monta Ellis at least addresses the Mavericks’ desperate need for speed.

PODCAST
Mark Cuban joins Galloway and Company to discuss the Mavericks' new GM Gersson Rosas and much more. Listen

“Possibly the fastest player ever to wear a Mavs uniform,” coach Rick Carlisle said via text message. “Scores, makes plays and is great in transition. We consider him a unique talent and look forward to integrating him into our team.”

Dirk Nowitzki has never played with a guard as good at getting to the rim as Ellis, who has a career average of 19.4 points per game. Ellis has never had a teammate who draws defenses the way Nowitzki does, which should create a lot of space for Ellis to do what he does best.

And the Mavs expect both of their top scoring threats to benefit greatly from playing with pass-first point guard Jose Calderon.

The key for Ellis, who made his three-year, $25 million deal official Tuesday, will be becoming much more efficient than he was the last season and a half with the Milwaukee Bucks. His shooting percentages plummeted to 41.6 from the floor and 28.7 from 3-point range last season, the latter the lowest among league qualifiers.

Ellis’ shot selection needs to improve, and the Mavs believe they can help put him in situations where he can get good looks on a consistent basis.

They also think they can help him improve his jumper, with Carlisle intending to spend a lot of time working with Ellis on an individual basis, much like he did last year with O.J. Mayo. Mayo shot a career-best 40.7 percent from 3-point range during his lone season in Dallas.

Ellis’ best 3-point shooting season came in 2010-11, when he hit 36.1 percent of his long-distance attempts. That’d be a bonus if he hit at that clip for the Mavs, who signed Ellis primarily for his ability to get to the bucket.

Mark Cuban considers the biggest misconception about the Dallas Mavericks to be the belief that Dirk Nowitzki is no longer a superstar.

PODCAST
Mark Cuban joins Galloway and Company to discuss the Mavericks' new GM Gersson Rosas and much more. Listen

Nowitzki had his streak of 11 consecutive All-Star appearances snapped last season, when he missed 29 games and averaged 17.3 points, his fewest since his rookie year in 1998-99, and the Mavs failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1999-2000. However, Cuban considers the down year to be an aberration that can be attributed to the arthroscopic knee surgery Nowitzki underwent in October and the Mavs’ subpar point guard play.

“If there’s one missing piece between what everyone is saying and what we’re doing, everybody, I think, has dismissed Dirk, like Dirk is done and he’s on the downside and he can’t play anymore and he’s not the type of contributor that he was,” Cuban said during an appearance on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM’s Galloway and Company.

For more, click here.

PODCAST
Fitzsimmons and Durrett discuss Mark Cuban's comments from Las Vegas about the Mavericks' offseason, how he sees the team without Dwight Howard and more. Listen

The Mavericks didn't accomplish their ultimate mission of adding a superstar, but they did accomplish a significant goal this summer.

They got better. Maybe good enough to get back into the playoffs in a loaded Western Conference.

The Mavs, assuming all the deals they've agreed become official soon, made upgrades almost across the board after Dwight Howard decided to head to Houston. A position-by-position look:

POINT GUARD: The Mavs believe Jose Calderon will solve a lot of their problems from last season, particularly regarding late-game basketball IQ woes.

Darren Collison is a nice sparkplug backup, but he never earned coach Rick Carlisle's trust to run the offense, especially in clutch situations, as evidenced by the Mavs recruiting geezer point guards Derek Fisher and Mike James out of their rocking chairs during the season.

Calderon, who has career averages of 7.2 assists and 1.7 turnovers per game, can be counted on to get the ball where it needs to go. He's not a creator, but Calderon is a phenomenal spot-up shooter, leading the NBA in 3-point percentage (.461) last season. The Mavs gave Calderon a four-year, $29 million deal to make the offense run much smoother.

The 31-year-old Calderon comes with defensive deficiencies due to his limited athleticism, but the Mavs' point guards weren’t exactly Gary Payton in his prime on that end of the floor last season. That’s a problem the Mavs didn't fix, not one that was created this summer.

Devin Harris, who is likely to sign a one-year, minimum-salary deal after recovering from a dislocated toe that caused his three-year, $9 million offer to be pulled, would give the Mavs a proven, versatile veteran backup with some pedigree as a defensive stopper. Harris isn't the blur the Mavs used as bait to get Jason Kidd, but when healthy, he's a solid third guard who can play both backcourt positions.

Rookies Shane Larkin and Gal Mekel are a couple of intriguing prospects who will have to earn every minute of playing time this season unless they drive down the tollway to Frisco. They're different players -- Larkin is an explosive athlete who can create off the dribble and shoot from deep; Mekel is a savvy distributor -- but both have potential to be factors as pick-and-roll facilitators.

SHOOTING GUARD: Monta Ellis is better than O.J. Mayo.

How much better? That depends on how coachable an eight-year veteran with a career average of 19.4 points per game will be in Dallas.

Ellis' shot selection in Milwaukee the last season and a half was simply awful, making him an extremely inefficient scorer. If the Mavs can convince him to eliminate long pull-up jumpers from his diet, they'll have no regrets about the three-year, $25 million deal they offered him only after discovering Harris' dislocated toe.

The upside with Ellis: He’s the most dynamically athletic guard to ever be paired with Dirk Nowitzki. He's a tremendous penetrator who is a good finisher when he gets to the rim and willing passer when help defense comes. He's a one-man fast break waiting to happen. And he’s capable of taking over games for stretches with scoring flurries.

Ellis gets a lot of steals, but he’ll never be confused for an All-Defense candidate. Frankly, he's a concern at that end of the floor, not that he's a downgrade from Mayo.

Wayne Ellington, who will sign a two-year deal for $5.3 million, will give the Mavs a perimeter threat (.382 on 3s for his career) off the pine and isn't a poor defender.

Second-round pick Ricky Ledo, who didn’t play a minute of college basketball due to academic issues, is a raw project with starter potential who should be a featured attraction in Frisco this season.

SMALL FORWARD: The Mavs didn’t make any upgrades at small forward this summer, but it was a position of strength last season. The hope is that Father Time doesn’t tackle Shawn Marion or Vince Carter this season.

It helps that Carlisle can keep their minutes manageable, although it appears that Marion will have to continue to play a lot of power forward when Nowitzki rests.

It'd be nice if Jae Crowder can make a jump after a solid rookie season, especially by second-round standards. His 3-point shooting in summer league has been a disappointment, but Crowder is at least a tough, rugged body to bring off the bench.

POWER FORWARD: If Nowitzki's knees don't act up, this position might be the Mavs' most improved next season. He missed the first third of the season and took several weeks to work his way back into form last year.

The 35-year-old Nowitzki is no longer capable of carrying a contender -- hence the failed plan to acquire a superstar -- but it's not a stretch to think he can get back to the All-Star game after his 11-year streak was snapped. He averaged 18.9 points and 7.7 rebounds while shooting 50.5 percent from the floor after the break last season, the kind of production that can be expected of him at this point of his career.

CENTER: Until recently, if Samuel Dalembert was mentioned in the same sentence as Howard, it was something along the lines of, "Howard dominated Dalembert." But this isn't about a no-contest Howard-Dalembert comparison. It's about whether Dalembert is an upgrade over Chris Kaman.

There's no doubt that Dalembert is a better fit in Dallas than Kaman, as detailed here earlier this week.

The Mavs will also bring back Brandan Wright, barring an unforeseen development in his contract negotiations, and hope he can build off his outstanding finish of last season.

Elton Brand's physical presence and veteran savvy might be missed, but the Mavs should be better at center if Dalembert and Wright can stay healthy, whether or not injury-riddled former No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden is added to the roster.

This summer wasn't the spectacular success the Mavs hoped for, but it was good enough to give them a chance to get back into the playoffs.

This spin won't serve Mark Cuban well.

His claim that the Dallas Mavericks are "in a better spot" than they would have been if they had signed Dwight Howard isn't what fans want to hear. Especially not after they heard essentially the same thing last summer after the Mavs missed out on Deron Williams.

If that's the case, what was the point of stripping down the 2011 title team?

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Hindsight proved otherwise, but I'll stick to my guns that Cuban's decision to create financial flexibility at the expense of keeping the aging 2011 championship roster intact was worth the risk due to the potential reward. The Mavs needed to make mid-30s Dirk Nowitzki their second-best player to have a realistic chance at another championship run, given all the gray hairs of Dirk's supporting cast.

What went wrong? The circumstances changed after Tyson Chandler & Co. turned down one-year offers to stay in Dallas and got paid good money to go elsewhere. And give the competition credit for making their situations more attractive.

The Mavs hoped Chris Paul would be looking to escape New Orleans last summer. Instead, he got traded to the Los Angeles Clippers soon after Cuban made his difficult, CBA-influenced decisions. The Mavs prayed Paul would consider them this summer, but the Clippers pried open Donald Sterling's wallet to replace Vinny Del Negro with Doc Rivers, prompting CP3 to inform potential suitors that they need not even bother with a recruiting pitch.

The Mavs hoped Howard would be looking to escape Orlando last summer. Instead, he pulled an all-time waffle and made a last-minute decision to not opt out of the last season of his contract with the Magic. He regretted that enough to force a trade, landing with the Los Angeles Lakers for a "nightmare" season. That would have played right into the Mavs' hands had the Houston Rockets not done such a phenomenal job accumulating and deploying assets over the last couple of years, leading Howard to head down I-45 to team up with James Harden.

The Mavs hoped Williams would be looking to escape the Nets last summer, although he was always Plan C. The Nets made the bold, expensive move of trading for Joe Johnson, convincing Williams that he had a better chance of competing in Brooklyn than Dallas. Cuban, who had reservations about Williams all along, helped the Nets' cause by not joining the Mavs' contingent for face-to-face meetings with the All-Star point guard.

The truth of the matter is that Paul, Howard and Williams all made the right basketball decision. They all picked teams that are in a better position to contend than Dallas would have been if one of those superstars had signed with the Mavs.

In a roundabout way, Cuban acknowledges that with his annual statement that the Mavs are better off for having failed to hook the big fish. Of course, that's also acknowledging a fatal flaw with the original big-picture plan.

It's a stretch of the truth, to say the least, to claim that the Mavs benefited from those big fish picking other ponds. This is a superstar-driven league, and Dallas desperately needs to find a way to add another to give Dirk a chance to compete for a second championship in his golden years.

The Mavs certainly weren't better off without Williams last season, when a gimpy Dirk and a bunch of one-and-done temporary teammates limped to a .500 finish, snapping a 12-year playoff streak. With Williams on board, the Mavs could have easily added Samuel Dalembert as a stopgap, rim-protecting center this summer by using their midlevel exception.

Would that make the Mavs a championship-caliber team? Doubtful. But having Williams here would make the Mavs more competitive now and more attractive to free agents next summer, when the Mavs would have still had ample cap space.

This has been a better summer for the Mavs, for sure. They added a pair of potential foundation pieces for the future in guards Jose Calderon and Monta Ellis, plus Dalembert.

But just imagine the reaction if Cuban called Rockets general manager Daryl Morey and offered Calderon, Ellis and Dalembert for Howard. Or made the same calls to L.A. or Brooklyn to try to pry away Paul or Williams.

It'd be hilarious laughter and a quick hang-up.

You can make the case that the Mavs have recovered well after missing out on all the big fish, but nobody in their rational mind would believe that the Mavs are better off in the short or long term for not having successfully recruited a superstar.

Not even Cuban, no matter what he says.