Rick Carlisle blasts Samuel Dalembert

The Mavericks tried to get Dwight Howard this past July, but instead had to settle for Samuel Dalembert. Dalembert is a nice player, but he’s not exactly a superstar. The Mavs are going to have to have a lot of things go right for them to make the playoffs, so they can’t afford doing the little things wrong. That isn’t going so well.

Rick Carlisle has been known as a no-nonsense kind of guy, and he isn’t afraid to put players in their place. According to ESPN Dallas, he isn’t too proud of Samuel Dalmbert’s conditioning:

"“I just told him in front of the whole team that he’s got to keep working,” said Carlisle, who mentioned Dalembert’s conditioning issues to the media without a question being asked about the center. “We need his minutes. They’re going to be very important to us. He’s a factor. When he’s in shape, he’s a factor as a rim protector and rebounder, and he gives you a big, active, athletic body in there.”"

Dalembert didn’t take the criticism too well:

"“It’s not that,” said Dalembert, who was fighting a relatively serious case of the sniffles. “The main thing that happened to me is I got hurt. I got hurt in the first practice of camp. Stupid me, my pride takes over and I wanted to practice. I didn’t want to take off, so that kind of slowed me down a little bit.”"

So we’ll see if this elevates into a mini-saga. The Mavericks will need to get on the same page heading into the season. Check out how they did in their preseason debut, as well as all of the teams did here.