Now that some time has passed, I can think on this again. Yet, I still am not sure what happened to the Mav’s. I saw them lose and know that Dirk was shut down. There was no real help at the center position and point guard is still a problem.

In fact, it seems like last season all over again except, the Mav’s looked so much better during the season. How did they get so bad during the series against their former coach?

I saw this in the New York Post. Ouch!

http://www.nypost.com/seven/05122007/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm

Mark Cuban is fuming that Donald Trump called him a “loser” on ESPN Radio last week and taunted him about Cuban’s beloved Dallas Mavericks being knocked out of the first round of the NBA playoffs last week.

Trump said, “Mark Cuban is a guy who . . . puts so much pressure on the players. He wants to win so much, ya know, he wants to put himself in the position of the players. He wants to be a player, I guess. And he’s not a player . . . [Cuban] probably always wanted to be a winner all his life, and if ya look like him, you can’t be a winner. So he wants to put himself in the place of the players, so what happens is, the team choked.”

Trump then slammed Cuban about the Internet billionaire’s short-lived reality show, “The Benefactor.”

“Mark Cuban was extremely embarrassed when he copied ‘The Apprentice’ and failed,” Trump raged. “They threw him off television like a dog.

“I wrote him a note and I said, ‘Mark, you have absolutely no television persona. I wish you would have spoken to me previously or before you did this. I could have told you it was gonna fail.’ And he failed.

“Same thing with the Mavericks. The Mavericks have a great team. They’ll never win with Mark Cuban as the owner because he is not a winner.”

Cuban responded to Trump’s digs by e-mailing Page Six: “I guess Donald is still upset that he can’t afford to buy an NBA team. No doubt the cash requirements of more than $10,000 created a problem for him. Hopefully he will sell enough Trump Steaks, Trump Perfume and Trump Dolls to save some money and buy a team. Then we can see how he does. Until then he is a wannabe that needs to get a new spiel.”

Over the past year, the feisty Trump has feuded publicly with Rosie O’Donnell and Martha Stewart.

Cuban is a worthier opponent. While Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $2.9 billion, Cuban hints that most of it is tied up in real estate, not ready cash. Cuban, who sold broadcast.com to Yahoo in 1999, is said to be worth $2.3 billion.

Wow! I am not sure who should be more offended. One sports columnist is calling out LeBron James after James has struggled against the Spurs in the NBA Finals. LeBron had his name changed to LeDirk. Ouch!

After the Cav’s 3rd loss, in a row, they call James, LeBroom.

Gee, cut the kid some slack.

So, this is why the Mav’s lost! I thought it was because they couldn’t stop anyone in the low post, or from penetrating in the lane or hitting the outside shots. Now I know, it was Don Nelson doing all of that.
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Mavericks owner Mark Cuban claims in an ongoing dispute with his former coach that Don Nelson used “confidential information” to help the Golden State Warriors pull off a stunning first-round playoff victory.

That accusation is part of Cuban’s response to an arbitration claim Nelson has filed against Cuban to get $6.5 million of deferred compensation, which Nelson said he is owed for his time with the Mavericks from 1997-2005.

“Don may know that [Dirk] Nowitzki likes to turn toward his left shoulder not his right shoulder, but we don’t think that’s a trade secret or confidential information,” Nelson’s attorney, John O’Connor, said by phone Friday from his San Francisco office. “Cuban apparently does.”

Cuban didn’t respond to e-mail Friday, when he had left hip replacement surgery. A team spokeswoman said the Mavericks had no comment about the arbitration case.

The Warriors became the first No. 8 seed to win a best-of-seven playoff series to knock out the top-seeded team, winning in six games. The stunning end to the Mavericks’ season came a year after they made it to the NBA Finals, then lost in six games against Miami after taking a 2-0 series lead.

The counterclaim by Cuban, in which he also contends that Nelson violated a noncompete clause in his Dallas contract when he became Golden State’s coach last summer, was first reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Friday.

Nelson’s arbitration claim was filed May 1 after failed attempts to settle the dispute with Cuban. The claim was filed while the playoff series between the Warriors and Mavericks was still ongoing.

“Don is a bit embarrassed that he is part of this, and that people might think this was his idea,” O’Connor said.

Nelson’s contract with the Mavs included a clause that called for arbitration to settle any disputes.