Monday Musings: Mavs face identity issues

It remains to be seen how much and how quickly Rodrigue Beaubois can help the Mavs this season. (Danny Bollinger/NBAE via Getty Images)

Valentine’s Day brings us within a week and a half of the trade deadline, and now that the Andrew Bynum-Carmelo Anthony rumors have died down, there appears to be only one elite team that has even a slight chance at striking a landscape-shaking deal in the next 10 days: the Dallas Mavericks.

They’ve been tinkering around the edges since Caron Butler went down with what was thought to be a season-ending knee injury. They signed Sasha Pavlovic and then Peja Stojakovic to fill some of the scoring void at small forward, they’ve given more minutes to J.J. Barea and Ian Mahinmi, and they’ve played Shawn Marion more at small forward. They’ve won 11 of 12 to slip past the Lakers into the second spot in the Western Conference, and they are finally primed to get Roddy Beaubois — fast becoming the Loch Ness monster of alleged impact players — back as early as Wednesday from foot surgery. And now Butler, pleased with his rehab, is talking about coming back for the playoffs.

That complicates things on many levels. Having a rotation player come back only for the postseason is always tricky because the team will have established new rotations without him and he’ll have to work himself back into game conditioning during must-win time. Remember the Jameer Nelson/Rafer Alston mess Orlando went through in 2009?

Butler’s $10.6 million expiring contract — with some sweetener attached — also represents the primary bait Dallas has to pull a deal for a big-name wing player — someone like Tayshaun Prince, Rip Hamilton, Stephen Jackson, Gerald Wallace or any number of other guys who might become available as surrendering teams look to ditch long-term payroll. Those teams may also ask for Beaubois as the sweetener, but Mark Cuban has said rather loudly that the second-year guard is essentially untouchable. How much and how quickly he can help Dallas this season are still questions — ones that will only begin to be answered with about a week to go before the deadline.

The larger question, though, is: Who are the Dallas Mavericks? Is this a real championship contender?

Despite all the hype about Tyson Chandler (and few have been bigger fans of this move than I have been), the Mavs’ new stinginess and Dirk Nowitzki’s uber-efficient season, this team is, by the numbers, an almost exact replica of last year’s club — a 55-win second seed that flamed out in the first round.

The Mavs are decent at many things but elite at very few, save for avoiding fouls on defense and sticking long two-point shots on offense. Their defense, the subject of so much early-season fawning, is allowing 105.6 points per 100 possessions — good for just 12th in the league.

Last season? The Mavs allowed 106.3 points per 100 possessions — good for 12th in the league. And the illusion of improvement disappears when you consider that the league as a whole is giving up about 0.6 fewer points per 100 possessions this season.

The Dallas offense is scoring a solid 109.0 points per 100 possessions — the ninth-best mark. Last season, the Mavs scored 109.2 points per 100 possessions — 10th overall.

Add it up, and the Mavs are outscoring opponents by about three points per game — almost the exact same margin of victory as last season. Six teams have higher victory margins — much higher, in fact — and that’s not the sort of overall statistical profile associated with a championship-level team. The Mavs are once again winning more than the numbers suggest they should, mostly because they have somehow duplicated last season’s ridiculous performance in close games; Dallas is 9-3 in games decided by three or fewer points, tied with the Thunder for the best mark in the league.

The Mavs, again, look like a paper contender in the big picture. But what if that picture isn’t really accurate?

The nine games Nowitzki missed with a knee injury did enormous damage to Dallas’ profile. The Mavs went 2-7 in those games and were outscored by 53 points overall, about six per game. Take out those games, and the Mavs have outscored their opponents by about 4.9 points per game. That would still rank seventh in the league, but it puts Dallas much closer to the elite — and above the average margin last season’s Lakers posted.

There’s also this nugget, courtesy of Jonathan Tjarks at GetBuckets: Dallas is 7-3 combined against Orlando, San Antonio, Boston, Miami and the Lakers — and all three of those losses came when Nowitzki was out. The Mavs are 0-2 against Chicago, but even tossing the Bulls in among the league’s contenders, Rick Carlisle’s team is 7-2 against the league’s best with Nowitzki healthy.

And then there’s the whole thing about winning close games. The Mavs pulled this last year (9-2 in games decided by three or fewer points) and the year before (10-4), but the skeptics warned there was little evidence to suggest teams really “know how to win” close games, or that such trends carry over to the playoffs. Did consecutive first-round losses prove the skeptics right?

What you believe about Dallas depends a lot on what you believe about things like being “clutch” and knowing how to win. But even if you’re skeptical about that stuff, you have to recognize that Dallas with Dirk looks like a legitimately strong club.

If Cuban thinks the Mavs have a realistic chance to win the title, he’ll do whatever he can do boost their chances — he wants to win, and he knows Nowitzki deserves the best chance possible. But how does he get Nowitzki the best chance this season? With Beaubois, Stojakovic and the possibility of Butler returning in April? Or some other way?

May the countdown to the Feb. 24 trade deadline begin.

10 THINGS I LIKE AND DON’T LIKE

1. Gilbert Arenas, talking about his role in Orlando.

These quotes from Arenas to SI.com’s Chris Mannix would frighten me if I were an Orlando fan:

“I think for us to be successful, I need to have to start trying to dominate the second unit,” Arenas said. “I think that’s how we had success early. When I look back at our games, when we were on the nine-game winning streak, I was dominating that second unit. I need to get back to that.”

No, Gilbert, you don’t need to dominate the second unit, if by “dominate” you mean take a lot of shots. As a ball-dominator, Arenas has been a disaster in Orlando. He’s shooting 35 percent overall (25 percent from deep), getting to the line fewer times per minute than ever before and turning the ball over at a career-worst rate.

Arenas should aim for a toned-down version of the performance he put in during the Magic’s win over the Lakers on Sunday. He mostly served as a caretaker on offense, getting the Magic set before passing off to another perimeter player who would run the primary action on the play. He pushed the pace when it was wise with a strong outlet pass or two, and he attacked Steve Blake by driving right at him on the block. Arenas can also draw useful attention by posting up smaller guards.

Stick to this stuff, and he can help. Stretch too far, and he’s a negative.

2. Milwaukee’s alternate jerseys

This has been a miserable season in Milwaukee, and back-to-back weekend losses to the Grizzlies and Pacers may have killed its playoff chances. But I love those red uniforms the Bucks sport now and then on the road. Small pleasures this season with the Bucks, I guess.

3. Eric Maynor’s no-look passes.

A lot of guys throw no-look passes that are either useless (the lookaway doesn’t distract anyone) or no-looks that aren’t really no-looks — the ones where the passer looks directly at his target, passes the ball and then looks away after he’s already released the ball.

Maynor has some legit no-look ability, and he uses it well — particularly on pick-and-rolls. He’ll keep his eyes locked on the roll man, but if an opposing defender on the back line moves to help on the roll guy, Maynor will fire a pass to the other Thunder big man who has just come open — all while keeping his head turned toward the roll guy. That’s a useful no-look pass.

4. DeJuan Blair, outside the paint.

We should laud San Antonio’s second-year big man for working on a mid-range jump shot and finishing off the dribble, but it’s not there yet. He can be turnover prone because of his shaky hands, and he’s shooting 27 percent on mid-range shots; the one he clanked from the right wing Friday in Philadelphia was one of the three or four ugliest jumpers I’ve seen this season.

He should keep working at it, of course. It took Dwight Howard years before he got comfortable using his banker consistently in games. But come playoff time, Blair will probably be best served by working from 10 feet and in with the ball.

5. Derrick Rose’s mid-range jumper as a weapon.

Rose has been a good mid-range jumper for at least two seasons now despite a reputation as a shaky shooter. The Bulls have now added a new set that uses Rose’s J as a designated weapon rather than a second or third option to use on pick-and-rolls when he can’t get to the hoop.

Watch for this: Rose will enter the ball to a big man at the elbow and cut to the corner, seemingly out of the play. Then he’ll cut back up to the foul line, take a hand-off/screen from the same big man, dribble around a second screen at the opposite elbow and come out the other side with an open 15-footer.

This is progress.

6. Channing Frye, posting up.

There are lots of things going right for the Suns now — Sunday’s home clunker against the Kings notwithstanding — but Frye’s increased aggressiveness on switches is not getting enough attention outside of Phoenix. If teams switch against a Frye/Steve Nash pick-and-roll, leaving a point guard defending Frye, the Suns’ big guy is going right to the block and demanding the ball.

That’s a good thing, for many reasons. Frye can hit little floaters over smaller guys, and he can earn some trips to the line and draw double teams this way. It’s another weapon, and diversity on offense is always good.

7. The rebounding in Utah.

The Jazz are an awful defensive rebounding team, and if they don’t clean this (and some other things) up, they’re in real danger of missing the playoffs. This is on everyone, but the big man combination of Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson just isn’t getting it done. They combined for just 15 boards in 75 minutes during Friday’s loss to the Suns — a defeat in which Phoenix, one of the league’s worst rebounding teams, outrebounded Utah overall and grabbed a whopping 28 percent of available offensive rebounds.

Millsap cannot play 38 minutes and grab just three rebounds, as he did Friday. And though the box score says Jefferson grabbed 12 boards, the Phoenix big men outworked him for several key offensive rebounds. When the rebounds were contested, the Utah bigs wilted, just as they have for much of this season.

8. J.J. Barea’s one-handed style

Lamar Odom probably has the coolest-looking arm-extended move in the league with the statue-of-liberty thing he does on hard drives down the lane, but Barea’s Nash-like one-handed scoop shot is growing on me. The little guy is playing great, in general, lately — 14 points per game on 57 percent shooting over his last 11 games — and his ability to dangle the ball in his right hand without getting stripped or rejected is always fun to watch.

9. Glen Davis, moving his feet

The defense was incredible on both sides of Boston’s win over Miami on Sunday; the rotations, close-outs, positioning in passing lanes and split-second decisions were some of the best you’ll see this season.

Everyone played well, but, holy cow has Big Baby turned into a monster defensive player. Danny Ainge obviously thought highly of Davis — he drafted him, after all — but I’d be shocked if he saw this kind of defense in Baby’s future. He has always moved his feet well, but he’s gotten even better at that, and he is making the correct rotation with aggression and confidence. He’s typecast as the league’s best charge-taker, but he’s doing so much more than that.

There is a lot to be said, I think, for being around the right veterans.

10. Shaun Livingston, finding a role

Lost in Stephen Jackson’s latest game-winner, in Atlanta on Saturday, was the fact that Livingston scored 22 points on 8-of-13 shooting and started the second half in place of D.J. Augustin.

After not hitting double digits in scoring in a 32-game span from Nov. 27 through early February, Livingston has scored 10 or more points in four of Charlotte’s last five games. He’s getting out on the break, hitting floaters and jumpers and, perhaps most promising, serving as a pretty consistent post-up threat against smaller point guards.

A good story in Charlotte.