Mavs front office not completely incompetent

I'll admit, when I first heard that Dallas was signing Derek Fisher last night, I was apoplectic.

The last thing this team needs is another rapidly calcifying veteran who gives "locker room leadership" and "intangibles" but can't, you know, actually "play basketball" anymore.

Fisher is pretty much completely done as a basketball player, but merely by taking Troy Murphy's roster spot, he'll have done this team a lot of favors.

Rick Carlisle's handling of Murphy has been fairly indefensible. Murphy has been consistently getting minutes since the day he signed in Dallas, even though he hasn't been able to rebound, defend, score, pass or do anything besides shoot, and even that has been very hit or miss.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the front office released Murphy simply to prevent Carlisle from playing him.

However, the Fisher signing isn't exactly the answer either. Forget the big shots he hit (many, many, many years ago), he's a 38-year old PG who hasn't even been league-average in 4-5 seasons.

That may be what's most troubling about the Mavs recent signings -- Eddy Curry, Troy Murphy and Derek Fisher. Scraping the bottom of the barrel doesn't even begin to describe it.

If there aren't better basketball players in the NBDL than those three, the NBA needs to re-think whatever it is they're doing with their minor league system. If there are, Dallas simply has to do a better job of scouting.