Not ready to go deep

The roster isn’t completely healthy just yet, but it’s getting there. Once Erick Dampier and Eddie Jones get right, Devean George will be the only rotation piece on the mend.

If and when everyone is finally healthy, Avery Johnson will have 12 NBA-tested guys at his disposal. Can he work them all in?

“It won’t be difficult,” he said. “The good thing about it is instead of us always having to stretch guys to 38 and 42 minutes, we sold our guys on whatever amount of time, whether it’s 10, 20 or 30 or 40, just play hard.

“Some guys who played a lot longer last year, we’re hoping they can play a little bit less this year and play harder. That’s what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Johnson would like to get the minutes down for some of his heavy lifters. Dirk Nowitzki is averaging 35 minutes, Jason Terry 33, Gana Diop 30 and Jerry Stackhouse 27.

“We’re not the deepest team yet,” Johnson said. “We’re going to be a deep team when Dirk doesn’t have to play 38 minutes. We’re going to be a deep team when I can get 26 minutes out of Jet Terry, 26 minutes out of Devin [Harris], Stack can play 18-20 minutes.

“Then we’ll think about being a deep team and still being effective. And when I can split the time between Juwan [Howard] and Damp and Diop, and they can all go out there and play well. That’s when we’ll be a deep team, but we’re not a deep team yet.”