
Faced with a going nowhere roster loaded with onerous salaries due to the "efforts" of the Dan Issel Administration, Vandeweghe unloaded Nick Van Exel, Raef LaFrentz, Avery Johnson and Tariq Abdul-Wahad to Dallas (the team Vandeweghe had previously worked for) for Juwan Howard, Tim "I hate gay people" Hardaway, Donnell Harvey, a first round pick and cash.
It was a ballsy move by Vandeweghe, who essentially ceded Western Conference prominence to Dallas for the next decade while gambling that the Nuggets would rebuild successfully through the draft and free agency to become contenders themselves down the road. Vandeweghe's plan would work eventually, but he wouldn't be around to see it.
After one-and-a-half grueling seasons that saw Hardaway throw a TV monitor on the court, the mockery known as open tryouts, a 17-win season, a starting backcourt that couldn't crack a 15-man NBA roster the following season, an all-time lottery bust nicknamed Skita and plummeting attendance that incited Vandeweghe to turn the Pepsi Center atmosphere into a hybrid of a Planetarium laser show and Barnum & Bailey's Circus, Vandeweghe and the Nuggets lucked out.

Two seasons and a Vandeweghe firing...errrr, non-contract renewal...later, Miller would be traded for Allen Iverson (by Vandeweghe's successors Bret Bearup, Rex Chapman and Mark Warkentien) who was then traded - a season-and-a-half later - for Chauncey Billups and, in a twist of irony, McDyess.
Meanwhile, with LaFrentz and Van Exel added to a roster already featuring Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Michael Finley coming into their respective primes, the Mavericks were the instant winners of that 2002 mega deal. They won 57 games and a playoff series to wrap that 2001-02 season, followed by 60 wins and a Western Conference Finals appearance the next. Beyond the wins and losses, the Mavericks were young, deep and flexible and suddenly became the NBA's hot destination when players like Raja Bell, Eduardo Najera and Walt Williams joined the core of Nowitzki, Nash, Finley, Van Exel and LaFrentz (hence the 60 wins). In fact, since that trade the Mavericks have made a postseason appearance eight consecutive times, have won at least 50 games in each of those eight seasons and have won nine playoff series, including the Western Conference Championship in 2006. (Technically, the 50 wins streak goes back nine seasons, as the Mavericks had won 53 games in 2000-01. Nine straight 50-win seasons is a credit to Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and has to be one of the longest streaks of sustained success in NBA history.)

So how exactly did this trade bring these two teams together today? In some cases, it's pretty obvious and in others, the route was more circuitous.
On the obvious front, the Nuggets don't get to acquire Nene or draft Melo had Vandeweghe not firebombed the roster through the Dallas trade and thrown in the towel while torturing the fans with bad basketball, bad DJs and bad laser shows for two straight seasons. And the Nuggets don't sign Miller without Howard and Hardaway's expiring contracts coming off the books. And without Miller, there's no Iverson, and without parting with Camby's contract and Iverson this past summer, there's no Billups. And with no Billups, there's no playoff series victory for the first time in 15 Nuggets seasons.
For the Mavericks, acquiring Van Exel and Johnson from Denver enabled them to acquire Jamison who enabled them to acquire Stackhouse and Harris who enabled them to acquire Jason Kidd (still a bad trade in my opinion). Got all that? And the LaFrentz acquisition enabled the Mavericks to bring in Walker who essentially beget Terry.
So while a Stackhouse-Terry-Kidd trio (sans the injured Stackhouse) plus Dirk Nowitzki and Josh Howard is good enough to get you into the second round of the playoffs, a Nene-Melo-Billups trio plus Kenyon Martin, J.R. Smith and Chris Andersen might just be a tad better (to be determined in Dallas this weekend, of course...let's not get cocky).

Certainly not me.
Loading comments...