G/F Josh Childress signed a 3 year $20 million dollar deal with Greek team Olympiakos today, bolting the Atlanta Hawks for the Euroleague. Childress' deal sounds sweet...3 years, $20 million after taxes and an opt-out clause at the end of each year.

More to the point, however, I think opens up an interesting opportunity for the Mavs. The Hawks have not resigned restricted free agent Josh Smith. Word on the street is that part of Childress' reason for leaving the Hawks was his opinion of the team's management. I don't think any of us need to look too long nor too hard at the recent history of the Hawks to see that

If Josh Smith (and/or his agent(s)) have these same concerns about team management, would you offer a package headlined by Josh Howard to Atlanta for a sign and trade for Smith? I don't know if the Hawks would even think about trading Smith and I don't know if he's really interested in leaving Atlanta (or if he's waiting for the Hawks to pay him big time...my guess is he probably doesn't want to leave The ATL since he's from the area), but if there's even a slight chance, I'd want the Mavs to be in on it. Josh Smith is a phenomenal talent.

If such a possibility exists, it seems like one of those situations where both teams can get what they want: Josh Smith gets money and a spot on a team with more of an upside than the Hawks (albeit in a much tougher conference). Josh Howard gets a change of scenery. The Hawks get a couple of our bench players to beef up the eight players they currently have under contract.

I wouldn't do a Howard-Bass-Stack deal for Artest. I would do that same deal for Smith. Thoughts?

Here are a few snippets of the media reaction in Germany.

According to german sport magazine "kicker" Dirk is a strong candidate to carry the German flag at the olympic opening ceremony. They quote the president of the geman NOC Thomas Bach: "He would be an ideal ambassador for the whole team.." (sorry for my poor translation). -> Link

Dirk Bauermann, coach of the national team, says that Nowitzki is probably in the form of his life. He says this was the best Dirk played for the national team ever, even better than at the Euro 2005 when Germany won the silver medal and he was the tournament MVP. I haven't seen much of the games in the last weeks, but 2005 Dirk was unbelievable. If ever someone comes up again with Dirk being a bad clutch performer, just get him the tapes of the knock-out games of that tournament. Awesome. When Nowitzki was subbed in the closing minutes of the finals, the whole crowd gave him standing ovations with about 90% being fans of Greece. I still get goose bumps thinking of that.

Also in the interview is said that Chris Kaman will live in a hotel in Dirk's hometown until training camp for the olympics will start. They will practice together and Dirk and his family will take care of Chris. Seeing them play so well together for the national team I wonder how good they could be together in Dallas...

Here is the link, although it's in German as well.

So I guess early reports are, that its setting new weekend and single day records. 

"The Dark Knight" took in a record $155.34 million in its first weekend, topping the previous best of $151.1 million for "Spider-Man 3" in May 2007 and pacing Hollywood to its biggest weekend ever, according to studio estimates Sunday.

"We knew it would be big, but we never expected to dominate the marketplace like we did," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution for Warner Bros., which released "The Dark Knight." The movie should shoot past the $200 million mark by the end of the week, he said.

I saw it on the IMAX, and thought it was really good.  Definitely the best Batman movie.  Not to give away too much about the story or movie, but I really appreciated them going away from the "My parents died, so I need to become Batman" theme they have done in just about every Batman movie.

Ledger was awesome BTW.

So feel free to comment on it here, but without spoiling it for those who havent seen it yet.

This might be of interest because according to SI.com's Ian Thomsen, Darius Miles has auditioned for the Mavericks in Las Vegas:

"He was much better than I thought he would be,'' a member of the Mavericks' camp said. "On a scale of 1 to 10, I was expecting him to be 6. But he was a good, solid 8.''

He also worked out for the Nets, Celtics, and Suns.  Would you want him in a Mavericks uniform?

The Mavericks' summer league team is going to play its first game this Friday at 7 PM PST.  The schedule is as follows (all times listed as Pacific Standard Time):

Friday, July 11 @ 7 PM vs. LA Clippers

Sunday, July 13 @ 3 PM vs. Golden State Warriors

Monday, July 14 @ 7 PM vs. Minnesota Timberwolves

Wednesday, July 16 @ 3 PM vs. Sacramento Kings

Thursday, July 17 @ 1 PM vs. Detroit Pistons

All of the Dallas games will be on NBA TV.  Names in the roster include Renaldas Seibutis, Reyshawn Terry and Shan Foster, and invites were sent to Keith McLeod, Aaron Miles, Derrick Low, Reggie Williams, Richie Frahm, JaJuan Smith, Pops Mensah-Bonsu, Yaroslav Korolev, Charles Rhodes, James Singleton and Pape Sow, according to Mavs Courtside View.  The newly-signed Gerald Green is also expected to join.

UPDATE:  The official roster has now been released.  You can also find scouting reports from Donnie Nelson on some of the invites, along with the schedule for the Rocky Mountain Revue in Salt Lake City, here.

Although the deeds of the Mavs FO probably is the main story right now, I thought I'd give you an update on how Dirk is doing right now. Currently he is preparing for the Olympic games in Bejing with the german national team. Unfortunately Germany isn't even qualified yet. They have to finish at least third in an upcoming tournament in Greece to fulfill Dirk his biggest dream (besides a Championship) of participating in the olympic games.

Last night Germany played an exhibition game against Puerto Rico with JJB (Carlos Arroyo did not play). Well, it didn't go too well for Dirk. Germany lost 83:85 with JJB being the games top scorer with 24 pts. Dirk was the top scroer for Germany with 21 pts.

The first two exhibition games were easy wins for Germany coming both against Poland and Dirk was in good form.

But the biggest news from the national team probably is that the Clippers' Chris Kaman now is German and will play for the team in the upcoming qualifying tournament.

According to dallasbasketball.com, the Mavs FO is trying to save the MLE for someone else (Maggette, Posey, etc.) and will instead try to obtain Diop through a sign-and-trade for assets such as expiring contracts (Eddie Jones).  See, Donnie's trying to be creative. 

Supposedly, the Mavs have a great deal of interest in Posey, who played a huge supporting role for the Miami and Boston championship squads.

The Mavs' summer dealings may not be done yet.

Over at DMN blog Sefko reports that Eddie Jones picked up his $2 million option for this year.  AND reports that we will see something happening with Devean George in the next couple days.  All I have to say is UGGGGHHHHHHH...

I pretty much new that Eddie Jones was gonna pick up his option (I mean its a no-brainer...who else would pay the old man 2 mil a year?).  But this is getting pretty tiring...I know its been fairly quiet with people commenting and posting on Mavsmoneyball (its the offseason and all) but is anyone else really coming to the conclusion that we need to start fresh or something??  I really wouldn't want to be Donnie Nelson right now but this is not looking ver promising...even with a new coach we have to be delusional if we think this team is a top 3-4 team in the Western Conference.  I am almost starting to agree with all the pessimists out there that we should start fresh and trade either Dirk, J-Kidd, JET, J-Ho, and Damp.  I really don't know what else can be done to get people excited about the Mavs right now...I for one right now am not looking forward to another disappointing Mavs season...I really think that I am starting to lose years off my life by being a fan of this team (and I am only 24!!)

Hopefully someone can change my tune here...

Here is the link to the Sefko post...

http://mavsblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/07/quiet-so-far.html

Espn is reporting that the Jazz have made a qualifying offer to the Resricted Free Agent CJ Miles, meaning that if he choses, he can test the waters of the FA to get a better deal done, but that the Jazz could match any deal offered...

What that essentially means (I think) to us, is that should we go after him, we would essentially have to over pay what he is worth to get him (3 yrs, 5 mil per year, essentially using up all the MLE).  I think that us using up our all the MLE to get any significant player, whether it be Diop, Miles, ect. is going to be necessary.

But as it stands, what should the MLE be used for?  A center, who some Mavs sources said could actually start over the 11 million center we currently have, or be used on what has been the biggest hole in this teams rotation for the past 4 years?

Via the Star-Ledger

"The Nets made big news Thursday night when they traded Richard Jefferson to the Milwaukee Bucks. But before that deal was finalized, New Jersey had an offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers: Wally Szczerbiak for Vince Carter. Nets management thought long and hard about it."

As much as I would hate to do a deal again with NJ, it has to be at least looked at.  Carter, 31, is the same age as Terry, but his contract would put us in a nightmare of a Salary Cap choke hold through the 2010-2011 season (which is still one season less than what Terry is signed too).  Not sure though why NJ would do this deal, except that NJ would have 7 million (Stack) come of their books this next year, but would have Terry for one year longer than they would have Carter.

But from a Mavs perspective,  would VC > JET and Stack?