MVN - Most Valuable Network

Early bird special: The Devean George development

For all you early birds, I thought I’d give you something to chew on.  Thanks to Showboating’s Joe Boikess explanation to me regarding Devean George’s first right of refusal, I’ve discovered a little known perk to being on an expiring contract in which your team holds your “Early Bird” rights.

According to ESPN’s Marc Stein:

The Los Angeles Lakers‘ Kobe Bryant is the only player in the league with a specific no-trade clause in his contract, but league rules dictate that it’s a right George also possesses because he’s on a one-year contract (worth $2.4 million) and because Dallas would have Early Bird rights to re-sign him this summer.

If such a player is traded, Bird rights are not traded with him. So league rules compensate for this by requiring George’s consent in any trade.

Any deal that the Mavericks do for Jason Kidd will require that they eat some luxury tax.  With the deal in place that was set to go through, they were looking at around $15 million.  If they sign and trade Keith Van Horn, then you’re looking at a couple more million.  The other option on their roster is trading Eddie Jones and either Juwan Howard or Nick Fazekas, while getting back Darrell Armstrong from the Nets.

The thing that leads me to believe that a deal will get done before next Thursday’s trading deadline was how close it came to being finalized and that there are a couple other scenarios to push the trade through.  How do you continue playing for your team after nearly getting traded anyway?  Devean George went 0-for-11 on Wednesday, although the Mavericks did beat the Blazers by 20.

The role players seem to be an afterthought in all of this, and especially Jerry Stackhouse after saying “I’m not going anywhere” - knowing full well that the Nets would buy him out and he’d be back in Dallas one month later.  DeSagana Diop is a guy who figures to have a prominent role in their championship aspirations though holding the Western Conference big men in check.

For Jason Kidd and Devin Harris, how do you play on as if nothing happened?  Kidd has been playing in New Jersey alongside Vince Carter, so apathy is nothing foreign to him.  It’s the young guard for Dallas that I’d be particularly concerned about.  It seemed like the franchise was making more of a long-term commitment to him, so to abandon ship to ride some old legs into the playoffs seems to feed into the opposition’s plans for overpowering the Mavs.  Cuban, Avery and Dirk seem to be completely psyched out this season and it’s going to take a miracle for them to make the NBA Finals.  Jason Kidd might inject some new life into them, but I’m guessing that it will be short-lived.

The fact that George and Diop suited up for the Mavs on Wednesday though leads me to believe that what was once deemed “immenent” by league sources now has been placed on the backburner while they go back to the drawing board.  There’s only one week to go before the deadline.  The trade winds are blowing…

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 14th, 2008 at 1:01 am and is filed under Devin Harris, Keith Van Horn, NBA Finals, Nick Fazekas, Juwan Howard, Mark Cuban, Darrell Armstrong, Marc Stein, Eddie Jones, Showboating, Joe Boikess, Devean George, Avery Johnson, ESPN, Western Conference, Los Angeles Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, Kobe Bryant, Dirk Nowitzki, DeSagana Diop, Jason Kidd, Jerry Stackhouse, Vince Carter, New Jersey Nets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.