By the way, for this mentioned trade, I like both players. Barea has always struck me as a very mentally tough player who tries to impose his will on the game, but because he's a 5'11" skinny guy he can only go so far with it. But still, he's a solid bench player who can score (not exactly a shooter here) and can pass the ball pretty well--I don't think it's a mirage either. I think he has some potential as a good sparkplug off the bench. Obviously if Beno is moved we would need to get a starting point guard (an athletic defensive foil at that), but I have more hope for Barea than for Beno, which is a backhanded way of saying that Beno isn't very good. By the way, if Dallas gets Beno Udrih...man, will they be sorely disappointed. I think he may step up his play putting his mind into it more for a winning team, but some bad habits are hard to get rid of, and I think Beno will carry some of it to them.
I like Bass even more, and I think Dallas is severely underrating him by even putting him on the trading block in an attempt to snatch up some even bigger fish--they should use Josh Howard to fulfill that trade bait role, because now's the time to get maximum trade value out of him before his head kicks in even further. I think I do understand Dallas's side here, because they're essentially a 3 (or even 2) man team on most nights and their famous depth that pushed them deep into the playoffs has all but evaporated--their depth is a mirage because Jason Terry, a guy who should be starting over uberscrub Antoine Wright, is coming off the bench because their bench is just that pitiful. But I remember the days they had Van Exel, Jamison, Stack (a non-washed up version) and Terry coming off the bench with great scoring punch. Because they can't trade any of their big guns, and Stack isn't drawing very good trade offers (apparently), apparently they want to sack Bass in to really replenish this once permanent aspect of their game--the sixth man. True, Bass has limitations (he's not that tall, and he's not a good defender) but a guy that young and that good offensively with some rebounding ability shouldn't even be put on the block. I would be glad to take him, but I think there's some duplication with Jason Thompson here. Still, it definitely gives us good scoring punch off the bench if this trigger is pulled.
Point is, they can navigate around that by using Josh Howard as bait, and it's true that Bass is underrated around the league--guy is young and can play.
