Dirk: "Got to stay together"

After last night’s loss at Phoenix, Dirk Nowitzki was asked about the Jason Kidd trade fallout in the locker room.

“If it doesn’t happen, we’ve still got to stay together,” he said. “We’re still a team. If everybody starts pulling in different directions, we’ve got no chance.”

The topic picked up again in New Orleans.

“Yeah, it’s been definitely a weird couple of days,” he said. “Everything kind of hanging in the air, and nobody really knew what was going on. And when they basically said the deal was done, then all of a sudden it wasn’t, the team said okay. They didn’t know if they were going to dress or not, and then they ended up playing. So it was definitely a weird feeling.

“But we as a team made the best out of it. We tried to stay focused and tried to keep the group together. I mean, it’s really all you can do. Once everybody goes in their own direction, then the chemistry’s going to get messed up, and we won’t win anything. We want to make sure we keep everybody together. And whoever puts the uniform on will give it their best.”

Is he worried this may result in a split locker room?

“Well, I think that’s where the leaders of this team have to make sure it doesn’t happen,” he said. “If the locker room gets separated, there’s no way we’re going to achieve our goal. So, you know, deal or no deal, we’ve got to make sure that the troops are ready to go. They’re fired up. They stay together.

“And we still want to have fun together, and share good times on the bus, because we spend so much time together you don’t want to have distractions in the locker room. We'll just see what happens here next week, and hopefully we can move forward with good locker room chemistry. We always had good chemistry since I got to Dallas. It’s always been fun to be around.”