Remember that trade everyone criticized? 記得那個大家都批評的交易嗎? 原文 http://ppt.cc/fczq (晚一點有空再翻, 有興趣可以先看看) The Dallas Mavericks are weird championship contenders. Their best isolation scorer, off the dribble or in the post, is a 7-foot German dude for whom there is really no NBA precedent. They have one point guard-type player who can create in the paint consistently off the pick-and-roll (J.J. Barea), and his sub-6-foot status makes him a defensive liability whom the Mavs have to be very careful about playing for extended minutes. Their starting point guard is a spot-up shooter who still somehow manages nine assists per 36 minutes. Their best little guy scorer (Jason Terry) comes off the bench, rarely gets deep in the lane on pick-and-rolls and is often the target of opposing offenses even though he works hard on defense. This is a strange team with all sorts of obvious personnel limitations, but it works — on both ends. The Mavs’ offense is torching everyone, and the defense has held steady in the playoffs against three of the league’s top-10 offenses — at least two of which would seem primed to exploit Dallas’ smallish backcourt. Jason Kidd is a piece that helps hold this puzzle together. We all know he’s become a very good three-point shooter in his old age, but that’s even more important on this Dallas team than it might be anywhere else. Without a consistent drive-and-kick threat, the Mavs rely on the attention Dirk Nowitzki draws and their ability to space the floor in precise ways with as many good shooters as possible. It’s a system that can thrive with one so-so shooter — Shawn Marion or the streaky DeShawn Stevenson — but struggles when you put two such players on the floor at once. It would not have survived had Kidd not transformed himself this way. He nailed four huge triples in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals on Monday night, and I can remember at least three that came directly via his work with Nowitzki. The first two were especially revealing, since they came on simple pick-and-rolls with Dirk when Kidd simply waited out the Thunder’s de facto strategy on these plays — a strategy Dallas has figured out — and drained an open look. Kidd understood Nowitzki’s defender would jump out on him for a second or two, and that his own defender (Russell Westbrook both times) would slide under the pick and try to bump/hold Nowitzki to block his path to the hoop. But Dirk’s guy can’t risk staying out there forever, and Kidd kept his dribble alive until that defender stepped back. He then fired an open three in the window of time before Westbrook could get back out to him. Defensively, Kidd’s ability to guard multiple positions is crucial to a team that has to find places to hide Barea, Terry and Peja Stojakovic. It has allowed Dallas to switch on the Thunder’s beloved Westbrook/Kevin Durant pick-and-roll, a play that worked brilliantly Monday when Barea was defending Westbrook but sputtered when Kidd played that role. Barea and Terry were both on the team when the Mavs engineered their complicated Devin Harris/Jason Kidd trade in February 2008, but perhaps it’s a little much to credit Dallas with foreseeing this exact kind of team when the deal was made. Kidd had already developed into a league-average three-point shooter by then, but the Mavs viewed him as a dynamic point guard and not a top-notch spot-up threat. The trade, of course, was almost universally panned from the Mavs’ perspective, and the criticism got louder when Chris Paul demolished Kidd in the 2008 playoffs and Harris had the season of his life the following year. Harris hasn’t been the same player since that season, when he put up an All-Star-worthy Player Efficiency Rating of 21.6. He hasn’t cracked 18 since, his shooting percentages from all over the floor have dropped (or in the case of his three-point shooting, held depressingly steady) and he hasn’ t gotten to the line at the same rate. Various nagging injuries have played a huge role in that, but health matters, and Kidd’s PER over the last two seasons matches that of Harris. It’s tempting to say now that Dallas won a trade for which it was roundly criticized. And perhaps it has. But the Tyson Chandler acquisition has had as much to do with the Mavs’ resurgence this year as any non-Dirk factor, and that move highlights the importance of Mark Cuban’s willingness to spend. Cuban absorbed $11 million in added costs in the Kidd trade, and the Mavs exchanged Erick Dampier’s non-guaranteed deal (and two unappealing smaller deals) for Chandler’s massive expiring contract even though Dallas had already badly overpaid Brendan Haywood. Cuban has signed DeSagana Diop twice and managed to deal him after each signing, and he took on Marion’s $38 million contract in a four-team trade last season. Is this winning? That said, the Mavs are five wins from a title with Kidd playing a huge role on both ends. A championship is the ultimate trump card in deciding who wins a trade, right? But wait! The Nets used Harris’ perfectly sized contract to nab Deron Williams, one of the league’s greatest players. If you had a candid moment with Utah’s front office, it’d probably tell you that Derrick Favors and the draft picks the Jazz received — including the third pick in the 2011 draft — were the best assets they got in the deal, but Harris was a key part of it. The teams needed his salary in the trade, and Harris is still just 28, with plenty of basketball left in him for a team that needed someone to at least hold the fort at point guard without Williams. So: Who won the trade? What if Harris and/or Kidd is dealt again as their contracts near expiration? This is the trouble with instantaneous trade evaluations in many cases. (Note: The Pau Gasol trade is not such a case at this point; the Lakers won two titles and made three appearances in the Finals. They won the deal, even if Gasol’s legs fall off next season.) The NBA is just more complicated than that. --

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