PG - Jason Kidd
Kidd is at that sad point in his career where his prodigious talents and abilities are finally starting to elude him. He was once able to simply alter a game by stepping out on to the court. Part of that, though, was playing under coaches like Byron Scott and Lawrence Frank who knew to just let him loose on opponents rather than tying him down and forcing him out of his comfort zone (a strategy Scott has now bestowed upon Chris Paul in New Orleans). When Kidd arrived for his second stint in Dallas he was handcuffed and marginalized by former point guard and head coach Avery Johnson. While Kidd saw a dramatic decrease in productivity in Jersey before the trade, it was exacerbatedten-fold in Dallas by a coach who didn't even trust him enough at times to allow him to finish out close games. Combined with a limp Olympics where Kidd just looked plain old, and it's hard to believe that he will have it in him to lead this team with the kind of efficiency and will that he used to have in his Hall-of-Fame-worthy prime. While proving doubters wrong can be an effective motivator to max out one's skills, it's another thing altogether if those skills are already sitting in retirement.
SF - Josh Howard
Howard, when he was on top, was better than position-mates Caron Butler, Luol Deng and Danny Granger. He was the best of the new-breed of do-it-all small forwards not named LeBron James. Two years ago he averaged 19 points, 6.8 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game and shot 46% from the field (39% from three), but he was not a statistics-based player. When he was on his game he was an impact player first and foremost. He was the one Dallas player that didn't wilt under Golden State two springs ago. Even at the start of last season he was statistically better than he was the season before. However, once Kidd arrived the Dallas offense fell apart, Howard's effectiveness and percentages dropped and (unsurprisingly) so did the team's competitiveness. Howard is a key contributor to this team when he's on. He is as necessary to the fortunes of this team as Kidd or Nowitzki since he is the team's best two-way player and their most active wingman. Howard is not the kind of player that should anchor any team but he is the kind of player that would be a key contributor anywhere in the league. If he can't find a way to mesh with Kidd than some other team is going to get mighty lucky mighty soon as Howard only narrowly escaped being traded this summer after his bevy of 'personal miscues'. There will be no shortage of teams lining up to acquire his services, just hopefully none of them ask for Jason Kidd to come with him.
PF - Dirk Nowitzki
There are certain players in pro sports that go so far to categorically define exactly what and who they are that eventually one has to acknowledge their efforts. Is it really fair to keep harping on the fact that Dirk isn't a winning NBA player when he's made that so abundantly clear for so long? Does it not start to say more about the stubbornness of the critic than it does the effectiveness of the player in question? Dirk is who he is; a supremely talented player who doesn't have the 'clutch-factor' in him to put his team over the top. That means that he needs another guy on his team to do it. Just like Kevin Garnett had Paul Pierce last year Dirk needs someone to take that load off of his shoulders so he can play his game without having to worry about carrying the weight of his team. It's something that the greats are able to do and it is the reason that so few players in NBA history are truly considered 'great'. It's been so apparent for so long that Dirk doesn't fit that mold it's hard to really even call it a deficit in his game so much as a deficit in the team-building stratagem of Dallas management.
http://www.tsn.ca/nba/story/?id=249703&lid=headline&lpos=topStory_nba
