Nelson says Mavs would have lost to Thunder even with Chandler - Chicago Tribune

DALLAS â€"

The way Mavericks general manager Donnie Nelson saw it, Dallas still would have lost in the opening round of the playoffs to the Oklahoma City Thunder even if Tyson Chandler was still playing for Dallas.

"Tyson Chandler being on this team would not have guaranteed us a series win against the Oklahoma City Thunder," Nelson said Sunday afternoon. "There's no fans bigger of Tyson Chandler than the guys in that locker room and the guys in the management staff.

"We understand what he brings to the table, but we also would not have won that series [against the Thunder] had he been here. We might have won more games, we might have put ourselves in a better position, but there's no question that they're a better team."

Told of Nelson's assessment of the situation had Chandler been with the Mavs, forward Shawn Marion paused and initially appeared dumbfounded.

"He really just said that?" asked Marion.

Told again of what Nelson said, Marion affirmed that he believes the Mavs would have indeed won their first-round series with the Thunder if Chandler was still a part of this franchise.

"It's not just one person," Marion said. "Tyson does things out there a lot of guys don't do in this league, even if he's not scoring all the time.

"But it's just his presence out there. His demeanor, it can carry us to wins."

The Thunder swept the Mavs 4-0 in their playoff series a year after Chandler helped the Mavs beat OKC in five games in the Western Conference Finals.

Chandler brought the defensive presence the Mavs used to capture last year's NBA title. But when they failed to reach an agreement with him on a new contract, the Mavs traded Chandler to the New York Knicks on Dec. 9 and he became this year's NBA Defensive Player of the Year.

The Mavs said trading Chandler was more about giving them cap space so they could be a major player in this summer's free agency class.

"We'd be sitting here today and you guys would be telling me, 'Man, you guys are all locked up with no place to go and no flexibility, blah, blah, blah,'" Nelson said. "So it's just what it is.

"We exited [from the playoffs] sooner than we thought and we're all in a little bit of a state of shock, but we've got the ability this summer to go out and to be active and be free agent players. And so we've got to run out the ground ball."