The Mavericks Are Ready For Chemistry Class; Iman Shumpert Eyes December

Yesterday we told you here about what “The Association” will let us know about the Brooklyn Nets. Out West there’s a team with just as much intrigue and as many new parts: the Dallas Mavericks. Last year’s storyline was about how Dirk Nowitzki had some of his lowest averages of his career last season thanks to a bum knee and being in pretty bad shape after the lockout. That’s all behind him, he promises. He’s vowing to make sure he’s ready despite an offseason wedding and a honeymoon where he’s much more likely to be sitting on an island’s beach rather than putting up shots at its rec center. What he said was essentially, don’t worry about me guys. We, like Dirk, think his start to last year was a fluke, too. So if that’s huge news for Mavericks fans reading the tea leaves of training camp, consider his comments about last season that he snuck in at the end, comments that seem to show last year’s team was a strange brew. He said that he expects teammates this year to be more professional about contracts expiring (there are a lot of those this year in Big D), which can only lead us to guess some of last year’s guards, for example, weren’t quiet about wanting to leave the team. So for reasons why last year’s Mavs team played so poorly out of the gate you can pinpoint Dirk’s knee and conditioning, some disharmony and of course, Lamar Odom couldn’t have helped. … Unsurprisingly Dirk called Chris Kaman likely the best big man he’s ever played with. Not too hard a title to earn considering Brendan Haywood looked like David Robinson compared with Erick Dampier. One wrinkle we’re interested to see Rick Carlisle work in this season is Kaman’s spacing in the post. Remember he can step back to the charity stripe consistently. In that case, do you pull everyone away from the hoop to free throw line extended and let O.J. Mayo have the green light to create to the rim? … Trying to know what to make of this team’s expectations is a bigger question than how “Homeland” ran roughshod on the Emmys Sunday, but we bet with all the new parts — even considering Dirk’s promise to be better — this year’s start mirrors last year’s until the gelling kicks in. … Rumors have come out that Rasheed Wallace has been working out at the Knicks’ facility. We bet NBA 2K13 programmers are at the office making a patch just in case he has to be added to a roster. Player rating for the 38-year-old Wallace? We’d guess a 70. … Hit the jump to hear about another player on the Knicks’ radar. …

There were some nights pre-Linsanity last season in New York where Iman Shumpert looked like the guy the Knicks were building around. He was so streaky with his jumper (28 percent from 10-15 feet) that it didn’t take long to get rid of that feeling, but the way he could lock down guys on defense — actually his confidence to simply go after teams’ best players as a rook — was what impressed even more than his athleticism as a finisher near the rim. While Carmelo and STAT were working out with Hakeem this summer, Shumpert’s been making steady progress to be back on the floor after an ACL tear by December. That would peg both him and Ricky Rubio to return from ACL tears about that time, which is very good news indeed. [WATCH VIDEO OF RICKY RUBIO WORKING OUT TO GET BACK ON AN NBA FLOOR] … The Rockets recently added long-time Houston employee Dean Cooper back to the bench as Kevin McHale‘s assistant. The two had worked together in Minnesota, too, and Cooper was on Portland’s bench last season. … From No. 6 pick to non-guaranteed contract in three years is a short, strange trip. Jonny Flynn is living that sad reality, heading to his fourth team soon after the Pistons signed him this weekend. There’s no point playing what-if with the hip injury that held him to just 53 games in 2010-11 and 29 games with Houston and Portland last season. So the question is, do teams see him with the potential of the guy who was a rim-seeking missile out of Syracuse or a more timid point now? … Brook Lopez went international helping out with the NBA this summer, but his favorite part of it all was sitting in on a table reading of “The Simpsons.” … We’re out like a replacement ref running from Bill Belichick.

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