Friday, August 19, 2005

Mark Cuban is insane

You know, Mark, signing a player to a one-year contract doesn't make you any less of a billionaire. It's just smart business sometimes.
Have you paid even remotely close attention to the Cavaliers these past few years? Do you have any idea what kind of a player you are getting in DeSagana Diop?
Do you have any idea what kind of player you just agreed to put in a Mavericks uniform for the next three years?
His stat line in four seasons with the Cavs: 1.6 points, 2.6 rebounds and 0.8 blocked shots per game.
That's in addition to an average of about one stint on the injury list per season.
Diop grew up playing soccer in Senegal. The only reason he switched to basketball was because he sprouted to seven feet in height. He lacks a passion for basketball. His skill set would fit very neatly onto the period at the end of this sentence. He was drafted prematurely, straight out of high school in 2001 by former Cavs GM Jim Paxson, who was taking blind stabs at the time to find a replacement for Zydrunas Ilgauskas, still battling broken feet then.
Diop lacks the coordination to be more than a mediocre NBA center. The only thing he was proficient at in Cleveland was picking up fouls.
Cuban, you get all this for the next three years.
Of course, Diop was also tutored by some of the worst teaching coaches in recent NBA history in Cleveland. His first coach was John Lucas, who is far more remembered for his super-raspy voice and quotability than for anything he actually did leading the team. His second coach was Paul Silas, who apparently based his substitution patterns on how his coffee tasted at breakfast.
Diop also endured the interim tenures of Keith Smart and Brendan Malone. In that light, I don't blame him for being quoted as saying "I think it is good for me to switch teams."
Maybe Avery Johnson will reach Diop in ways other coaches haven't.
But three years? Come on, Mark. You can't be that hard up for a center.

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