NBA Playoff Redux? Different Year, Same Old Dallas Mavericks

The silence coming out of Dallas, Texas, is deafening. This year was supposed to be different.

The Dallas Mavericks made a deal to bring Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood over from the Washington Wizards near the NBA trade deadline, and the perception of the Mavericks as a legitimate NBA title contender shot through the roof.

Mavericks' fans were beside themselves with joy, and gushing over how much of an upgrade Butler was over the departed Josh Howard, and how the addition of Haywood would give the Mavericks the size they needed to compete with the bigger teams in the West.

Well, Butler may have been an upgrade over Howard, and on paper the Mavericks may have looked the part of a significantly improved team, but if so the results failed to materialize on the court, again.

The Mavericks were ushered out of the playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs in Game Six of their first round series, and the Mavericks are left to contemplate another 50-win season that ended in failure.

The Mavericks have now won 50 games for the 10th consecutive season, and the only thing they have to show for it is a 2006 Finals appearance where they were the culprits of one of the biggest choke-jobs in NBA history.

I had penned an article in which I described Dallas as the most likely victim of a first round upset, and many of the reasons I stated in the earlier writing were revealed against the Spurs.

For instance, Butler is a wonderful talent, but he didn't represent much of an upgrade over Howard unless you were discussing attitude and his ability to remain off David Stern's radar.

In terms of ability, Howard and Butler are virtually the same player, and although Butler did have a couple of shining moments in the postseason, they were nowhere near enough to realistically impact the series.

Likewise with Haywood, who gave Dallas fans the impression he was the physical force they needed in the post, but instead he turned out to be more like the legions of other Mavericks' big men who were unable to hold their own when it mattered the most.

More agonizing to Mavericks' fans is the fact that if owner Mark Cuban fails to address some fundamental flaws in the team's make-up then Dallas is doomed to continuously repeat their losing trend for the foreseeable future.

Regardless of Haywood and Eric Dampier's considerable length, the Mavericks are and always have been a perimeter oriented team, and until a serious effort is made to improve in the paint area, Dallas will continue to suffer.

Not only are Haywood and Dampier average defensive players, but they can hardly be counted on to provide consistent scoring in the paint, and this results in an abundance of shots from the perimeter.

And that's fine when the Mavericks are scoring in transition, or running their offense in rhythm, but when the pace of the game slows, Dallas is forced to rely on their perimeter players for points in the half-court set.

Much of the fervor over the Mavericks started when Dallas mounted a 13-game winning streak in the regular season, but even during that run, their fatal flaw as a team was exposed.

The Mavericks have never been known for their defensive prowess, and instead of people paying attention to the wins Dallas was racking up against sub-par opponents, thoughts should have shifted to their inability to defend.

The only team poorer defensively than Dallas in the postseason was the Phoenix Suns, and even though the Mavericks are a little better than Phoenix, it wouldn't be a stretch to call them Suns-like.

The only consistent man defender on the roster is Butler, and Haywood's gaudy block numbers in the Eastern Conference didn't translate to the bigger, more skilled post players in the West.

To be fair, it's hard to see how the seventh-seeded Spurs' win over the Mavericks was a true upset considering only a couple of games separated the teams in the final Western Conference standings.

The teams are also rivals, and they usually take turns ending each other's seasons in the playoffs, but there are still ominous tones associated with the Mavericks, regardless of how you choose to approach the situation.

Unlike the Mavericks, San Antonio and Tim Duncan have managed to win four championships of their own, while Dirk Nowitzki's tenure with Dallas has been defined by monumental postseason failures.

I didn't mention Dallas' loss to the Golden State Warriors in 2007, when the Mavericks were upset as a No. 1 seed, but that's just another little nugget of truth which bolsters the case against Dallas even more.

Some will call this loss to San Antonio an upset, but I beg to differ because it's hard to say the Mavericks were upset when losing as a top seed in the postseason has become a way of life in this part of the Lone Star state.