Mavs trade for Walker

Mavs send LaFrentz, first-round pick to Celtics
08:08 AM CDT on Monday, October 20, 2003

By EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News

The Mavericks continued to reshape their roster early Monday when they acquired Antoine Walker and Tony Delk from the Boston Celtics, president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson said.

Headed to Boston are Raef LaFrentz and two players acquired in the off-season trade with Golden State, Jiri Welsch and Chris Mills. The Mavericks also included their 2004 first-round draft pick to sweeten the deal.

Walker is a strong-scoring forward who could create a logjam in the front court - unless another deal is in the works. He, Dirk Nowitzki and Antawn Jamison, not to mention Eduardo Najera, would be splitting up playing time at the two forward positions.

Delk will shore up the Mavericks at point guard. He’s been a part-time starter in the league for several years and will give the team an insurance policy since the only proven point guards on the team were starter Steve Nash and backup Travis Best.

The deal makes sense from a financial standpoint for the Mavericks, who have the third-highest payroll in the NBA. Walker has a maximum contract that ends after the 2004-05 season. He will earn $13.5 million this season and $14.625 million next season.

LaFrentz signed a seven-year, $69-million deal before last season. With Delk’s deal added in, the Mavericks will be relieving themselves of about $35 million in salary over the life of all the contracts.

The trade talks got hot on Sunday and the deal was finalized early Monday morning after the Mavericks returned to Dallas from a preseason game in San Antonio.

sorry I cant provide a link, its from the dallas newspaper, and you gotta register

no need for that 'logjam' just start nowitzki at Center

C Nowitzki
PF Walker
SF Jamison
SG Finley
PG Nash

damn

man, that's a carrer for the german wunderkind. started as sf and now plays center, but a tear runs over my face when i have tor ead that lafrentz goes . however, with walker the mavs will be unstopable!

Lafrentz gone , for some reason i liked him but i think the mavs got the better of the deal though, im not a walker fan but this is kinda obvious imho, though raef isnt the greatest defensive player out there, so aint toine, raef might even have the edge and isnt his 3pt% higher then 'toines, another strong player from the east moves to the west, how is this possible, though raef might be an all star C(i assume they let him play C and Baker at PF, they really must have faith in Vin to trade away walker)in the east, but the mavs individual defense is becoming non-existent, najera is gonna have to play lots of minutes then to stop some guys from exploding(dont get me wrong, every one of these guys can rebound, nowitzki, walker and jamison if they want to but they arent exactly known for their defense).
Lets wait and c who will have the better of the trade

well, the celtics are building a young team with the draft pick, their good rookies and the truth.

well, the celtics are building a young team with the draft pick, their good rookies and the truth.

You will never be able to say a rookie is a good rookie until you have him seen playing some good seasons.
But I do not see any sense in this trade, neither for the Mavs, nor for the Celtics.
Before that trade the Mavs lineup could have been
C - Fortson (solid defender and former boombastic rebounder)
PF - Nowitzki
SF - Jamison
SG - Finley
PG - Nash
But now with Walker they have to give up Fortson from the starting lineup and have no good inside defender.
And the Celtics gave away their second main offensive weapon. For only mediocre players.
Why???

what do you need defense for when ya starting lineup alone could put up 115 points a game?
lol
wow i cant beleive it.
when i saw the headline, i thought that jamison or finely were the ones that were traded.
but lafrentz. shit! what are boston doing.
hopefully Banks,Welsch,Perkins can produce, and lets hope Bakers new slim body brings his old game back

oh MAAAANNNN!!! There cannot possibly be enough basketballs in Dallas. Have fun Mavs fans, your team now has the magnificent Antoine Walker! I dunno whether to laugh or cry.
Didn't the Mavs need some tough interior defenders? Even inside scorers?
They got smaller, and they probably just got more selfish... maybe Walker will be a distributor with so much talent (he is a descent passer, give him that). Walker is sort of un-necessary since they have other guys to fill any spot he can take, and Delk who is supposed to be a point guard, is more of a shooting guard type, plus they already have Nash, Best, Finley, Tariq-Abdul-Mohammed-Wahard-on and whoever else taking the guard positions... Danny Fortson too is supposed to get some minutes somewhere, centre perhaps? Geez lucky the Western Conference is so small!

Mark Cuban thinks he's playing franchise mode in NBA Live, where you can cheat the computer (in this case the league) by trading players for other players with higher ratings, and then winning all 82 games. I could be dead wrong (and I'll gladly eat my words) but I don't think this move helps the Mavs that much. Tim Duncan is going to make them all his bitches inside...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=1642156

The Mavs starting line-up is a picture of the Western Conference all-star team. Every one of the starters for the mavs is a potential all-star
I cant believe this. Personally I don't think Walker would help much to the mavs.

UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So what will be the dallas pic now?, they will have to sit someone there. Maybe Finley will have to be the first 100 M dollars man coming from the bench.

Dallas just got a lazy package who loves the 3 point line as much as Nowitzki, the good thing is that Lafrentz was also a shooter from there so they won't miss him in that aspect. Bad trade for the Celtics who at least had a leader/motivator on Walker.

As for the Mavs, lol. This is crazy, everyone was complaining & saying the Lakers were supposed to win without excuses after getting Malone & Payton. Now I say Dallas would be much more ridiculous if they don't win the challenge this year, not cause they are complete cause they still need help in the post but now having 5 guys who can avg. 22+ ppg in the same team, that's like not needing any bench.

I really don't understand this trade. It's not as if the trade is exremely beneficial to both teams. The way I see it both teams could have just saved lots of paperwork by not making this trade at all, as IMO it doesn't make that much of a difference.

So I'm thinking that maybe this is all just trade bait - probably on Dallas' side - maybe they're working on another deal that will see Walker simply making a brief stop-over in Dallas and going somewhere else?

Just a thought.

So what will be the dallas pic now?, they will have to sit someone there. Maybe Finley will have to be the first 100 M dollars man coming from the bench.

Dallas just got a lazy package who loves the 3 point line as much as Nowitzki, the good thing is that Lafrentz was also a shooter from there so they won't miss him in that aspect. Bad trade for the Celtics who at least had a leader/motivator on Walker.

As for the Mavs, lol. This is crazy, everyone was complaining & saying the Lakers were supposed to win without excuses after getting Malone & Payton. Now I say Dallas would be much more ridiculous if they don't win the challenge this year, not cause they are complete cause they still need help in the post but now having 5 guys who can avg. 22+ ppg in the same team, that's like not needing any bench.

It won't be possible to have them all 22+ ppg. They all will score less. And I don't think that someone of that 5 must come of this bench cause Dirk can play C too, but when someone comes of the bench then it will be Jamison or Walker, cause Finley is better than those too IMO.

I'm surprised by this trade.

Dallas has a fucking dominant All-Star lineup that it's unbelievable.

It won't be possible to have them all 22+ ppg.

Actually if you read well, it says "can" as they have done it before.

And I don't think that someone of that 5 must come of this bench cause Dirk can play C too

Yeah, Dirk can play C, Dirk can play PG as well, even SG. Nobody is saying he can't. But do you want him facing Shaq, Yao, etc? or can he guard them effectively?, NO. So I still believe they will have to sit someone there.

but when someone comes of the bench then it will be Jamison or Walker, cause Finley is better than those too IMO.

I don't care who will, if Finley is better than those 2, good. I just don't see the Mavs using the combination of Dirk & Walker to face Shaq & Malone, KG & Kandi, TD & Nesterovic, Webber & Miller (Divac), Those still have the advantage, so it's better to have Dirk in PF & someone else who can rebound at least & in this case is not Walker which means if Walker doesn't move back to SF, he might have to sit down.

The movement I was talking about was having any C, Dirk, Walker, Jamison & Nash with Finley coming from the bench, some have been complaining that Finley is not even worthy the money but yet I agree, Finley is better than the same Walker.

now nets atlantic and eastern champs for 7-8 years!!!!!!hahahahahah boston fans you suck!!!!!!!!!!! last year K-mart lit walker like a x-mas tree, now i wonder what duncun, shaq, and kg will do

Mark Cuban thinks he's playing franchise mode in NBA Live, where you can cheat the computer (in this case the league) by trading players for other players with higher ratings, and then winning all 82 games.

ROTFLMAO...

hahahahahah boston fans you suck!!!!!!!!!!!

Geez...grow up...and stop trying to start flames...

As an aside...

WARNING...CONSPIRACY THEORY COMING...

Boston is one of the most racist towns in the country...and considering that before this trade their rotation was all black players...the addition of LaFrentz and Welsch might be to help sell tickets...

now nets atlantic and eastern champs for 7-8 years!!!!!!hahahahahah boston fans you suck!!!!!!!!!!! last year K-mart lit walker like a x-mas tree, now i wonder what duncun, shaq, and kg will do

lol this shall be funny
but damn this trade is just unexpected. Kinda like a kobe for t-mac trade.

only use for this trade I see if for Dallas to be talked about more and watched which means selling tickets and making more $$$
5 players who were all-stars at least 1 time in there career that fulls all 5 positions.
Look out Lakers, if Shaq is in foul trouble, Dallas> Lakers
Just way too much talent Dallas has now.
Well many said this vs. the Kings and Lakers won vs. Kings ( screw u horry!) so we will just need to see how things go.
I guess Dallas has a new type of plan. Why give the ball to 1 or 2 main people when you can give it to anyone now?

Yeah, Dirk can play C, Dirk can play PG as well, even SG. Nobody is saying he can't. But do you want him facing Shaq, Yao, etc? or can he guard them effectively?, NO. So I still believe they will have to sit someone there.

I don't care who will, if Finley is better than those 2, good. I just don't see the Mavs using the combination of Dirk & Walker to face Shaq & Malone, KG & Kandi, TD & Nesterovic, Webber & Miller (Divac), Those still have the advantage, so it's better to have Dirk in PF & someone else who can rebound at least & in this case is not Walker which means if Walker doesn't move back to SF, he might have to sit down.

The movement I was talking about was having any C, Dirk, Walker, Jamison & Nash with Finley coming from the bench, some have been complaining that Finley is not even worthy the money but yet I agree, Finley is better than the same Walker.

But without Finley on the court you won't have any SG there. Also I do not think it's a big problem for the Mavs guarding strong inside-combos. They can have problems with them but that should be no problem for the Mavs because their offense now is so incredible strong that they can shoot everyone down.

Nice trade for Dallas, they'll just put Dirk at Center and put Walker at PF.

i dont think this trade will help any of the teams...i mean 4 boston, they lost their second best man and dallas, they jus aint got no center...and dirk at center, must be joke, he aint even a real pf...

great work for Dallas i think even though Walker can be cold as ice at times...but he can also be hot at times..plus he won't get that much attempts as he did in Boston so he'll probably select his shots carefully...i'm sure Don Nelson has go this worked out...

i still cant believe this trade, dallas had become Real madrid in soccer,, they get all the great players,, but i cant see how the dallas roster will be??,, nowitzki playing at center is just stupid, how will he handle it if he was guarding shaq or ben wallace or alonzo or mutombo,,,Come on this is just plain stupidity by both teams!!!

I obviously like the C's and have much thinking to do before I decide what I think of this, Paul Pierce I am sure had more to do with this than racism or whatever people say. LaFrentz adds some size and a bit of defense (with 30min 14ppg 7.5reb 3 blocks), also he is much more of a team guy, letting Paul take the shots and not turning over the ball. I really think Boston did okay here, Toine was getting lazier, his rebounding and assists were declining and his poor judgement was worsening. Still undecided, I must say freeing up Walker type money in two years would have been nice, now LaFrentz is in for the long haul

Antoine Walker is the highest paid player on the Mavs now, it's seems a bit weird. (By the way, back on Michael Finley, when it came time to extend contracts, Finley got a better deal than Nowitzki, I really think I must be the only one who doesn't believe Finley is a top notch player)

This offseason Dallas has been quite good at trades.

Gained
Antawn Jamison
Antoine Walker
Danny Fortson
Tony Delk

Lost
Nick Van Exel
Raef LaFrentz
Jiri Welsch
Chris Mills
Avery Johnson
Popeye Jones
Antoine Rigaudeau
Evan Eschmeyer
2004 1st Round Pick

Don Nelson is not really all that bad of a GM, I could see Walker being traded as well, maybe a team like Portland would deal Rasheed Wallace or Dale Davis and Damon Stoudamire or something like that.

I know whos gonna be 3-point happy this season. Shoot, they'll probably lead the league in 3 pointers. Every starter can handle the ball like a guard now, and they all have 3 point range. Now if they fall, they'll be the best in the L.


600th Post