Mavs overhaul roster heading into 2012-2013: pros and cons

I wanted to interrupt my regularly scheduled sequence of Rangers blogs to analyze the surreal and bizarrely orchestrated offseason by the Dallas Mavericks.

The plan was to lure Deron Williams back to his hometown to pair with Dirk Nowitzki, who's entering the twilight of his career and has two guaranteed years left on his contract. After all, Dallas let Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea, both in their prime, walk after the championship season of two years ago for this very moment. The plan failed, as Williams stayed with the now-Brooklyn Nets, which made another big splash by reeling in Joe Johnson.

Making matters even more interesting was Jason Terry signing with Boston, and Jason Kidd darting for New York. The Mavs were torn up in front of our eyes, and it hurt.

Terry spent eight years in Dallas and is probably one of the three to five best players in team history. We felt his pain in coming so close to an NBA title in 2006, which is why our euphoria was at an all-time high in 2011 when the Dirk/Terry-led Mavs hoisted their first NBA trophy in franchise history.

When the news involving Williams, Terry and Kidd happened within the span of a few days, the Internet and Twitter world was abuzz with doom and gloom comments. Part of this chatter was a representation of the modern age of blatant overreaction by sports fans. Still, it didn't feel great to be a Mavs fan.

In the week following the bad news, the Mavs brought in a slew of respectable NBA players on one-year deals: Darren Collison, O.J. Mayo,  Chris Kaman, Elton Brand and Dahntay Jones. They still have Shawn Marion, Vince Carter, Roddy Beaubois and Dominique Jones. And of course, Dirk.

The roster looks a little better. A train wreck turned into maybe a fender bender - it's not pretty, but it could be worse.

Here are the pros and cons, from my vantage point, of the roster overhaul:

PROS

• Average age: Last season, the average age of the starting lineup was 34.2 years old. The Mavs sported the oldest roster in the league. This season, the average age of the projected starting lineup of Collison (24), Mayo (24), Marion (34), Nowitzki (34) and Kaman (30) is 29.2 years old. That's a five-year difference.
• Cap space: Dallas still has a heck of a lot of cap space for the 2013 offseason, when guys like Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Andrew Bynum, James Harden and Serge Ibaka become free agents.
• Upgrade at center: If Kaman stays healthy, he's a 15-10 threat every night. I grew awfully tired of the Brendan Haywood era, which ended when the Mavs used their amnesty rights on his contract and said adios. Unfortunately, Kaman has only stayed healthy for a full season once in the past five seasons. That year was 2009-2010, when he was an All-Star and averaged 18 points and nine boards per game.
• Upgrade at point guard: I'll take a 24-year old Collison over a 39-year-old Kidd, who admitted he was a back-up point guard at best in this stage of his career. 
• Mayo potential: Mayo still has a ton of upside at age 24. He averaged 18 and 17 points per game in his first two years in the league before taking on a sixth-man role for Memphis. He's not much of a distance shooter - he's never shot 40 percent from three - but he gives Dallas a legitimate scoring threat entering the prime of his career.
• Coaching: Rick Carlisle is still steering the ship, and as long as he's captain, defense will be preached. Take Marion, for example, who has seemed to morph from a high-flying offensive player in his Phoenix days into a versatile defender who can guard any position (later in his career, at age 34 nonetheless) with Dallas.

CONS

• Familiarity: The most obvious knock on this team is they have never played together. Will one offseason be enough time to gel? The ceiling seems somewhat high, but the bottom appears to be pretty low.
• Depth: A bench that includes Brand, Carter, Beaubois, Jones and rookies Jared Cunningham, Jae Crowder and Bernard James seems OK, but in the event of an injury or two, it could get ugly quick. Health is always paramount, but particularly in this case.
• Other teams: Oklahoma City is Oklahoma City, and the Spurs are the Spurs. The Lakers added Steve Nash in the offseason, and the Clippers, Grizzlies, Nuggets and Rockets could also be tough. The Mavs seem to be anywhere from the fourth- to seventh-best team in the West at the moment.
• Cap space: Yes, cap space was also a pro, but there's always the chance the same thing happens again next offseason. If Dallas doesn't reel in a big fish, the combination of striking out again and this year's one-year deals could make next offseason a complete catastrophe.

This will be an interesting team to follow. I just wish for Dirk's sake he had another superstar by his side for one more run at the title. I'm just not sure this squad has the supporting cast to do that.