Thursday, June 2, 2005

mark cuban the liar... part 1

I have been a fan of Mark Cuban since he sprung onto the sports scene with his purchase of the Dallas Mavericks in Jan. 2000, but not anymore. As an avid reader of Cuban's blog for quite a while I finally decided to comment on his 21 May post, "Some Thoughts...", in which Cuban gave insight to his thoughts on the Mavs season which had just ended. My comment below posted only a few hours after Cuban had originally posted his entry and at the time there were only about 8 comments, most of which backed Cuban and the Mavs success, with just a couple providing a differing opinion (including mine). Interested to see how other readers commented, I went back to Cuban's blog a few hours later only to find my comment had been deleted along with all but about 6 comments that he decided to keep. Each of which praised the Mavs for such a great season (was it really?) along with stroking Cuban's ego; additionally, he decided to cut off any new commenting. In essance, Cuban had manipulated the post to falsely give the impression that everyone was just hunky-dory with his Mavs and that they had exceeded all expectations (which of course is crap!). Needless to say I've lost a good deal of respect for Cuban and I emailed him to let him know. Unexpectedly, he responded. More to come...
As much as I was rooting for the Mavs to win the championship, in the back of my mind was the thought that the Mavs just dont play the defense required to do so... sure they displayed some D at times this year, but not nearly often enough. How does Nash go off for 48pts in game 4 and average 30pts and 12 assists in the series? How do you let Jim Jackson take over in the 4Q of a crucial Game 5 as he just abused Finley who doesn't appear he could guard my grandma (and thats not a reference to Larry Johnson). How is Nash so wide open for the 3 to tie at the end of game 6? Didn't everyone in the arena know who was going to be shooting that ball? Yeah Dirk you can be pissed at Jet for not being there but hey, without his 36pt offensive explosion, Phoenix doesnt need that 3 to win. Maybe AJ will be the answer to whether the Mavs can finally learn to play D because you cant win a championship without it. Phoenix doesnt play the best D in the league but they shut down the Mavs when they needed to. Up by 16 in the 3Q of game 6 and it was gone in about 2 mins. ...And what happened to Dirk in the playoffs??? His offense was anemic at times, forcing shots that werent there and settling for jump shots when he needed to take it to the hoop. He's supposed to be the star of the team, the go to guy, but with the exception of game 5, he was anything but. Yeah this appears to be a rant on the Mavs but if a championship is the expectation, its time to get the team to learn how to play D... as Phoenix showed, we dont have the team that can just outscore everyone.
Interesting article by Randy Gallaway

3 comments:

Eddo said...

Ummm... I expected part 2 already...

zam said...

Dude, come on. You're killing me with the "more to come..." crap!

What's with the cliff-hanger?

Ps: Did you see that my 'Stros have won back-to-back series for the first time all season? That's a bonified win-streak! Come on, man...I've got to hang on to something this season. Go 'Stros!

Anonymous said...

my apologies, my blogging was interrupted by real work of all things... ya gotta hate that! part duex coming soon.

i actually hadnt noticed (with the rangers in the midst of winning 9 in a row) that the astros are trying to pull themselves outta the cellar, two series wins is definitely a step in the right direction! ... i heard a rumor today that clemens is interested in playing for the rangers since they are contending for the AL west and its not far from his home in houston... just a rumor but all good rumors have some factual basis ;)