Big D Stands for Disaster Under Nelson

Big Trouble in Big D for Big Don and Little Donnie: Don Nelson still had a little of his reputation left when he arrived in Dallas, not that it lasted long.

He was general manager for a matter of minutes when he axed Oliver Miller over a quote in the papers, in which Miller said he didn’t care if he was benched.

Nelson said he didn’t want players who didn’t care. Of course, he may have gotten some input from his son, Donnie, who’d been working in Phoenix, where they talked about Miller, who broke in there, as if he were Dracula.

On Day 10, Nelson traded his entire starting team--Sam Cassell, Jim Jackson, Chris Gatling, George McCloud and Eric Montross--to New Jersey for Shawn Bradley, Robert Pack, Khalid Reeves and Ed O’Bannon.

Nelson said it didn’t matter what they gave up, since they had garnered their “cornerstones,” Bradley and Pack.

O’Bannon and Reeves are long gone. Pack remains an injury waiting to happen. Bradley is now the cornerstone of the Mavericks’ bench.

Fortunately for Nelson, owner Ross Perot Jr. knew little about basketball--before his first news conference, he was overheard asking how many players there were on a team--and cared less. His primary interest was in getting $100 million of public money to help build an arena, so he could develop the surrounding property.

His friend, Frank Zaccanelli, another developer who was also a fan, volunteered to help run the team. He was the one who traded Jason Kidd.

Faced with the necessity of bringing in a professional, they brought Nelson back from his beachfront in Maui, and he proceeded to polish off their future for them.

This completes one of the great falls in NBA history. Into the ‘90s, Nelson was widely admired, the first three-time coach of the year, the cutup who wore fish ties, the philanthropist who drove a tractor around Wisconsin to rally aid for farmers, the man who revived the Milwaukee Bucks and Golden State Warriors. Teams lined up to hire his assistants and proteges: Gregg Popovich, Del Harris, Mike Dunleavy, George Karl, Mike Schuler, Garry St. Jean, Rick Majerus.

Nelson was brilliant at coaching little guys over big guys, in the regular season and the early rounds of the playoffs, anyway. But when he tried to add his kind of big guy--who could handle the ball and pass--he often turned out to be someone like Bradley or Ralph Sampson.

He drafted Chris Webber, who was able but also young and headstrong. Their breakup broke up Nelson’s Warriors.

Maybe Nelson could have bent more too? Along the way, he seemed to have become enamored of his genius reputation. He sometimes talked about his imaginative game plans and his players’ inability to carry them out. Sometimes it seemed that not only did he think he was really smart, he thought everyone else was kind of thick.

Nelson dared to follow Pat Riley with the New York Knicks, and to ask the aging Patrick Ewing to change his game. He was back in Maui by midseason.

Then Dallas came calling, offering big money and total control. . . .

Even in Nelson’s career, which has featured huge swings and huge misses, Bradley is a memorable disaster, with two more years left at $7.5 million that caps the Mavericks out. Desperately, Nelson searched the globe for a savior, acquiring young 7-footers from Australia, China and Croatia, not to mention 6-10 Leon Smith, a Chicago high school kid who so embarrassed the organization with his troubled behavior.

So fans weren’t unhappy last week to hear that Perot was selling the team for an outlandish$280 million--part is for the Mavericks’ interest in the new arena--to a 41-year-old, newly minted dot.com billionaire named Mark Cuban.

Not that they were wholly reassured to hear Cuban, a passionate fan who sits courtside, say he would emulate Jerry Jones’ “socks to jocks” style, as the Cowboys get older and stiffer and fans tire of Jones’ spotlight-hogging.

There was speculation that Cuban would gut the divided front office, but a relieved Nelson emerged from a sit-down with Cuban, gushing that it was “a great meeting, just great.”

Nelson had volunteered to give up coaching, he said, and had withdrawn his plan to let his son take over.

Of course, there was no chance Cuban would let Nelson keep on coaching after this season, or Donnie take over.

Donnie, a personable, hard-working young man, may have to leave to restart his career. His father may have to leave in a season or two as well, since the Mavericks’ chances of improving are negligible.

Your basic New Millennium Young Fan-Owner (see also: Dan Snyder, Washington Redskins) arrives with more enthusiasm than wisdom, and, of course, little humility, having made all that money. Cuban, an Indiana graduate, started what became Broadcast.com with a friend in a spare bedroom, trying to find a way to bring radio accounts of IU games to Dallas. They ultimately went public and sold out to Yahoo! for $5.7 billion. Is this a great country or what?

Of course, the NBA won’t be that easy, but Cuban hasn’t gotten that far yet.

He wants to be everywhere and talk to everyone, like Philadelphia’s madcap owner Pat Croce. Cuban is also telling people he thinks Nelson may have lost something as a coach but remains a personnel crackerjack. Most insiders think it’s the other way around.

But Cuban will care, which is an improvement. That’s all you need to know about Perot’s era, which will be lamented in Dallas about as long as his father’s presidential campaign.

As Maverick fans could tell you, that giant sucking sound you hear isn’t just a figure of speech from Ross Sr.’s speeches, it’s Ross Jr.’s basketball career too.

FACES AND FIGURES

Tick, tick, tick: They’re getting worried in Miami where there’s still no word when Tim Hardaway, whose sore knee hasn’t responded to treatment, will return. Riley, now starting rookie free agent Anthony Carter, says Hardaway has to be back in three or four weeks or they’ll have to look for help before the Feb. 24 trade deadline. Says Hardaway: “He has to do whatever makes him feel secure. He has to look out for the future. It’s just him being cautious. He’s edgy like I’m edgy.” . . . The future is even more of a problem. Hardaway, 33, will be a free agent this summer and Riley may not ask him back. In the meantime, Riles may be warming up again on Glen Rice. . . .

Dear Jay Leno, how many times are you going to put Dennis Rodman on to plead for NBA jobs? It may seem pathetic, but Rodman is a troubled guy who needs help. What’s more pathetic is exploiting him for ratings, or rebounds. . . .

J.R., the saga continues: First Isaiah “J.R.” Rider said he wanted to re-sign in Atlanta, then he ripped teammates for not caring about winning the way he does, missed the flight to Detroit, was suspended and reinstated. Then with the Hawks behind by 10 to the Pacers and four minutes left, he walked to the scorer’s table and asked, “Who keeps the statistics? I want to know if my pass to Bimbo [Coles] counts as an assist. I gotta keep track because of my contract.” . . . Disposa-Bulls: Remember when Rusty LaRue said he didn’t want to leave the CBA for the Bulls, after which they played him for 37 minutes a game, then cut him to sign Khalid Reeves? Reeves, returning from Greece, said he was a new person: “Being a younger player coming into the league, you expect things, and when those expectations are not met you hold a grudge against the coach, and all those kinds of things lead to animosity.” The Bulls cut the new, happy Reeves a week later. . . .

Timberwolves’ official to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, on reports the Knicks offered their usual package of Kurt Thomas and Chris Childs or Charlie Ward for Terrell Brandon: “We’re not in waste management.” . . . It takes a Milwaukee guy to appreciate a Milwaukee guy: Former Marquette assistant, now University of Utah Coach Majerus, on Karl: “George is an outstanding coach and a quintessential Milwaukeean. He loves a good meal. You could walk in any corner bar and sit down with George and it would be like sitting down with your favorite uncle. Except your favorite uncle would have more hair.” . . .

TNT’s John Thompson, on his partner’s observation that Elden Campbell is finally out of Shaquille O’Neal’s shadow: “Sometimes it’s good to be in somebody’s shadow.”