Caron Butler

The off-season is here.  The NBA draft is coming up but this is not what most people are talking  about.  The collective bargaining agreement is set to expire at the end of June.  Many teams are reportedly losing millions of dollars.  We are being told that the owners are prepared to take a hard stand, needing to do so in order to keep the league going.  Speculation is that much of the season could be lost with both sides refusing to budge.  Lets hope that is not going to happen.

It has only been two days since the Dallas Mavericks eliminated the Los Angeles Lakers in rather dramatic fashion.  And there is much to discuss.  So here, in no particular order, are my thoughts on the recent Maverick news.

The Chicago Bulls came out in their green jerseys to try their hand at getting some extra luck against the Mavericks. It didn’t turn out very well. There was a Jason Terry sighting on the court at the AA Center, meaning that the Mavericks are officially at full strength for the stretch run. Granted Terry will need a little time to get accustomed to his new grill, the clear hard plastic mask that Terry wears now to protect his face. Erick Dampier appeared to be running the court cleanly and smoothly, yet I would say he is at 95%. The [...]

The beat goes on, yes the beat goes on. The Mavericks went into Charlotte after a tough game the night before and won. Let’s hide the pictures from this one though, it was ugly. With Butler, Nowitzki, and Terry all scoring over 20 points, the Mavericks withstood some cold shooting. They also fought through a case of laziness. The breaths were deep, the hands on the shorts were prevalent, and fast breaks were caught in slow motion. Yet they won, and that’s all that counts when you are in a playoff push like the Mavericks find themselves in. The Mavericks [...]

The Mavericks seemed to be a finely tuned engine purring their way to a seventh straight win, but things aren’t always what they seem. With a twenty plus halftime lead that crept up to a twenty five point lead in the third quarter, ended up being a close game down the stretch. The third quarter was once the power quarter for the Mavericks, yet the last two games they have been outscored by more then ten points each game. It seemed as though the intensity was taken away, and the New Orleans Hornets took advantage of that. Led by Dirk [...]

The Mavericks came out on fire, yet got stale and stiff the rest of the way. The momentum of beating the Lakers never boarded the flight to Atlanta. The young Hawks team ran, shot, and hustled their way in the second, third, and half of the fourth quarters, after the Mavericks ran all over them in the first quarter. During the win streak, the third quarter is where the Mavericks pulled away. Outscoring their opponents in the third quarter during the win streak, the Mavericks were outscored by 11 in the third quarter. All signs pointed towards a blow-out win [...]

Caron Butler admitted last year that he had kicked his Mountain Dew habit. Butler slimmed down more than 15 pounds he told me simply by not drinking his normal 7-10 12-ounce bottles of Mountain Dew a day. Now comes word that the NBA has outlawed Butler from chewing straws during games. What seems like an easy couple of habits to kick in the grand scheme of things isn’t what it seems. Caron told me that kicking the “Dew habit” was like kicking alcohol or drugs. He would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, and shaking. [...]

Josh Howard’s bad couple of weeks just got worse. Recently acquired Washington Wizards forward Josh Howard will miss the remainder of the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee. Howard was injured Monday night in Washington’s win over the Chicago Bulls, only his fourth game with the Wizards since being acquired from Dallas in a seven-player trade on Feb. 13. No decision has been announced on whether Howard would have surgery. Howard was plagued by criticism off the court while a Dallas Maverick, and was looking forward to starting over in Washington. Accused of missing a [...]

I had to turn up the heat in my house after watching the ice-cold Mavericks trying to make a basket in the second half against the Thunder in Oklahoma City. Shooting an awful 31% from the field in the second half, including a whopping 14%, 11 point third quarter, the Mavericks shot selection was awful. This was a key game for them, and they couldn’t close out a game that was there for the picking. If you were able to see through the ice, you would have noticed a considerable upgrade on the defense side of the ball. Now let’s [...]

A believed target of the Mavericks, Caron Butler of the Washington Wizards, is being reportedly going to become a Houston Rocket according to multiple sources (first broke by Yahoo Sports). Yet every supposed “insider” has a different location for Josh Howard to end up at. Howard for his part has stayed out of it, choosing to not say anything. Being around Josh I believe he is confident that he will stay in Dallas, at least until the end of the season. He is well aware of the rumors, he has been asked every night it seems about the rumors. He [...]