Mavs New Coach – Rick Carlisle to Mavericks
May 10, 2008 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under NBA News, NBA Teams
Rick Carlisle has been hired by Mark Cuban to coach the Dallas Mavericks and was signed to a four-year contract. Carlisle replaces the fired Avery Johnson and comes to the Mavs after coaching stops with the Detroit Pistons and the Indiana Pacers.
In terms of fantasy basketball, this news doesn’t immediately affect the fantasy value of the Mavs players one way or another. Carlisle has at times in his coaching career gone with a slow-paced offense, which would hurt fantasy value. However, Carlisle has talked about changing that philosophy. Basically, we’ll have to wait and see how Carlisle decides to run Dallas’ offense before making any judgment.
This season, the Mavs finished the regular season with 51-31 record. In the first round of the playoffs, they took on the New Orleans Hornets. After losing the first two games in New Orleans, the Mavs won Game 3 but then lost Game 4 and Game 5. After being eliminated, Cuban was quick to fire Johnson and begin his coaching search.
While some media reports indicated that Mike D’Antoni could get into the mix, Carlisle ended up being the first and last serious candidate.
Photo: Newscom
Good hire. His personality probably will fit better with Mavs as they started to tune Avery out.