Full-Court Press

Butler is back and ready to roll

That’s what his public-relations machine is saying,
anyway.
 
The 6-7 small forward spent the last month in Chicago with training
guru Tim Grover, who Butler said has helped him drop about 10 pounds and regain
something he’d lost.
 
"Since
being in Chicago with Grover, my explosiveness is back, and I feel better than
ever," Butler said in a news release distributed today. “He tapped
into what I needed. He's made my game better. Last year I was settling for jump
shots. Now I want to be more aggressive and execute a variety of looks from the
court both on the attack and on defense."

 

The
Mavericks are all for it. They’ve got plenty of players who are willing
to heave jump shots. An attacker to go with Roddy Beaubois would help the
versatility of the team.

 

Butler
also said he has high goals this season, which is the last one on his current
contract.

 

“With
this team that we have in place, I want to win it all,’’ he said. “We
definitely want to finish in the top three in the West. That's a very realistic
goal. We want home court heading into the playoffs. To have an opportunity in
this conference, you want that. Then once you're in the playoffs anything
can happen, and I believe we can make a run to the top."

 

Novak to join Mavs' camp

Steve Novak, a 6-10 forward who has been in the NBA the last
four seasons, will be joining the Mavericks as a training camp invitee.
 
Novak was the 32nd overall pick in the 2006 draft
by Houston. He played two seasons with the Rockets and has been with the Los
Angeles Clippers the last two seasons. The former Marquette standout averaged
6.9 points in 2008-09, when he knocked in 41 percent of his 3-point shots.
 
The 27-year-old played just 54 games for the Clippers last
season.
 
The Mavericks are looking for a backup to Dirk Nowitzki who
plays a similar style, which Novak does.
 

Mavs may flush out camp roster with Cardinal, others

Training camp opens in a week and the Mavericks’
intentions are to start with only 13 guaranteed contracts.
 
A few others will be brought in, probably including 6-8
Brian Cardinal, who won’t be guaranteed any money or a roster spot. He’ll
have to earn his way onto the regular-season roster and if he doesn’t,
there’s no risk on the Mavericks’ part.
 
There was a time before Cardinal signed a six-year deal with
Memphis in 2004 that the Mavericks had an interest in bringing him in. But the
price at the time was too high.
 
Cardinal is a good shooter for his size, which might give
him a fighting chance to earn a roster spot as Dirk Nowitzki’s backup.
 
Expect other non-guaranteed players to show up. Former
Garland standout Ike Diogu is looking for a job and is on the Mavericks’
radar.
 

Tim Thomas not returning to Mavericks

            Tim Thomas has decided not to return to the Mavericks
because of the situation with his ailing wife.
            Her condition, which Thomas and his family
prefers to keep private, forced the 6-10 forward to stay with her much of last
season. He played with the Mavericks for the first half of the season,
averaging 7.5 points and 2.3 rebounds in 18 games. But he left the team in
January – with the Mavericks’ blessing – to care for his
wife.
            Thomas said in March that if his wife’s
situation improved, he wanted to return to the NBA and play for the Mavericks.
            His agent, Bob Myers, said Tuesday that Thomas
would not be rejoining the Mavericks. It is believed that Thomas may be leaning
toward retirement after a 13-year career.
 

Dirk goes to work on his second career

Maybe acting isn’t in his future, but Dirk Nowitzki knows
he can at least lend his voice to the small-screen for animated greatness.
 
Nowitzki will have a voice-over role in “The Cleveland
Show’’ which airs Sundays on Fox. The date of the episode that will
feature Dirk, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Steve Nash and others from the NBA
is unknown, but that show will feature the main characters (Cleveland and
Donna) scoring courtside tickets to the All-Star Game in Los Angeles. They
heckle the players, who then seek revenge by paying a surprise visit to
Cleveland to put him in his place.
 
The season premiere is Sept. 26 at 7:30 p.m.
 

Roddy details his injury and the future

(This is the first in a periodic look at key topics
involving the Mavericks leading up to training camp Sept. 28)
 
Roddy Beaubois was doing his best Lance Armstrong on
Thursday in the Mavericks’ locker room, pedaling the stationary bike up
and down imaginary hills.
 
That and weightlifting is about all he can do. He still
wears a protective walking boot on his left foot, which needed a pin inserted
in it to stabilize a broken bone near the outside of the foot suffered in early
August.
 
At least he’s not on crutches anymore.
 
Now, he’s getting primed for what the Mavericks
hope/expect to be a breakout season for the second-year guard. He took some
time to detail what his off-season was like, starting with the injury that
happened when he was working out with the French national team in preparations
for the World Championships.
 
“I was feeling a little pain for a couple days, but
they X-rayed it and didn’t see anything,’’ Beaubois said. “I
couldn’t feel it every time, so I thought maybe it’s nothing. Sometimes
I’d feel it for a couple of minutes. But I’d come back and it would
be good. Then, one day, whoa, it just broke. When it broke, I knew it. I knew
it was something bad.’’
 
Beaubois said he’s hopeful to be ready to go by the
start of the regular season on Oct. 27.
 
Beaubois, meanwhile, said he hopes to be back with the French
team next summer as they try to qualify for the 2012 Olympics.
 
As for this season, he’s excited about the
possibilities as he continues to try to master the point guard position. And he
likes the way the Mavericks are put together.
 
“It’s a learning process,’’ he said.
“Sometimes, (in the summer league) I was like, Damn, what’s that?
The last two years I’ve played two, so it’s a different position.
 
“We got a good team. But last year we had a pretty
good team and we finished in a bad way. We just have to work hard again.’’
 
Beaubois also mentioned that the situation in Game 6 against
San Antonio, in which he was having a terrific game but sat on the bench for
most of the decisive fourth quarter, is long gone.
 
“It’s some tough choices for coach,’’
he said. “If we had won, it would have been great. It’s just a
coach’s decision. I just need to be ready when they call my name. For
sure it was difficult. It was a very important game and we lost it. It was
tough. I was feeling great. But it’s all good. That was last year.
I’m focused on this year.’’
 

Interesting MVP odds

These are courtesy of bodog.com and it’s really hard
to believe that neither Kobe Bryant nor LeBron James is the favorite to win the
MVP award this season.
 
Here’s the odds:
 
Kevin Durant……………5/2

Kobe Bryant………………3/1

LeBron James……………9/2

Dwight Howard…………13/2

Dwayne Wade………………9/1

Carmelo Anthony……12/1

Dirk Nowitzki…………14/1

Chris Paul…………………16/1

Derrick Rose……………18/1

 
No other single player is below 35/1 (Amare Stoudemire).
 

Got pipes? The Legends want you

If you’ve ever been ticked off by some broadcaster or analyst,
here’s your chance to prove you could do it better.
 
The Texas Legends, the NBA’s D-League team in Frisco
that will be the Mavericks’ affiliate, is having open tryouts for a
public-address announcer, radio play-by-play person, national anthem performer
and mascot entertainer.
 
If you think you have what it takes, applications are being
taken via Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frisco-TX/Texas-Legends/186090906001 .
 
Applicants should record videos of
themselves announcing lineups, singing the national anthem or performing mascot
tricks, then post videos on the Facebook wall. YouTube videos are accepted as
well. By doing the audition process through Facebook, fans will have the
ability to comment on submissions. The audition process will be open through
October 1.
 

It's 20 days and counting

The Mavericks will open up training camp on Sept. 28 at SMU’s
wonderful practice facility. It’ll be here before you know it.
 
True, the Rangers are headed to the playoffs in spite of
themselves and the Cowboys haven’t even played a real game yet, but the
NBA season is just around the corner. Media day is on the 27th and
it’ll be an interesting camp indeed with Tyson Chandler trying to find
his role and coach Rick Carlisle getting his first training camp with Caron
Butler and Brendan Haywood.
 
Starting later this week, we’ll begin taking a sneak
peek here on the blog at some of the issues that await the Mavericks as they
get ready for camp.
 
In the meantime, here’s a little factoid for you to
chew on: When the Mavericks acquired Jason Kidd at the trade deadline in 2008,
they were first-round fodder in the playoffs. The following year, they got to
the second round, which admittedly still isn’t the ultimate goal.
 
But that should mean the expectations are reasonable for the
Mavericks to have a better fate this season than the first-round ousting they
took with Butler and Haywood joining the team in midseason.
 
History has proven that those sorts of transactions rarely
produce big returns right away. It takes time.
 
OK, so that’s a glass-half-full outlook. After a
restful August, we’re in a gracious mood here at the blog.
 
We’ll commence with the flip side of that in the
coming weeks.
 

Let's not critique Chandler just yet

While some people want to proclaim the Tyson Chandler trade
a loss based on the big man’s play with Team USA in the World
Championships, let’s remember that this is an international tournament
and drawing any conclusions about Chandler is foolish.
 
Here’s a novel concept: why don’t we wait until
he starts playing with the Mavericks and then start forming opinions, good or
bad?
 
I know, I know. That’s not how it works. We want to
hear the sensational opinions from the un-sensational. But I know those of you
frequenting this blog are smarter than that.
 
And I would contend that, so far, the world championships
have been a rousing success for Chandler, no matter what his numbers say. Why?
Because he looks like he’s moving better than he has in two years and
that’s far more important right now than any scoring or rebounding that
he’s doing.
 
Those things will come if he’s healthy. And as long as
he is, he’s going to be a favorite of fans once they see him this season.
No, he won’t do certain things as well as Erick Dampier did. But he’ll
do other things better. Chandler’s play is not going to be as important
to this team as, say, Roddy Beaubois’ improvement. But it will be needed
by a team that has only one other true center – Brendan Haywood.