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It's hard to find a bigger Devin Harris fan than me. He's been a joy to watch develop into a quality NBA point guard from a scrawny kid four years ago.

And he's been fun to work with.

If, however, the Jason Kidd deal goes down, the Mavericks will have gotten something in return for this young pseudo-star.

The last good point guard that left here was Steve Nash. He walked out the door, and nothing came back in.

At least this time, the Mavericks would get Kidd. That may or may not be to your liking. But he's an asset. And a very good one for the moment. That may not be the case when he's 36 or 37. But at 34 (he'll be 35 in March), he's still very effective. He's less than two rebounds from averaging a triple double.

But this is would be a here-and-now deal. If it doesn't work here and now, then the Mavericks would write it off as a bust.

Assuming it becomes official, then we can all start charting the merits of the deal immediately after the All-Star break.

Q: Are the Mavericks crazy? Why trade Harris and most of the bench? Kidd is not all that. This is too much to give up for a guy who is soon to be 35 years old. The Mavs will be a lottery team in two or three years.

SEFKO: This is a paraphrase of the dozens of e-mails I got regarding the Mavericks' proposed trade for Kidd. Assuming the trade goes through, it's a reasonable analysis, although not one the Mavericks agree with.

The question is whether winning a title this season would be worth diving to the lottery in two years like the Miami Heat did.

Rest assured, this move means the Mavericks are all-in this season. If they don't win a title this year, the likelihood diminishes next season and virtually evaporates altogether in 2009-10, assuming Kidd is still around.

The Mavericks would be giving away a player who should be a good point guard for the next six-to-10 years. Maybe not great. But very good.

Is Tony Parker a "great" point guard? Or is he just very good partly because he gets to play alongside Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili?

These are the tough decisions that the Mavericks pay Donnie Nelson and Avery Johnson to make.

Personally, I'm not a fan of pitching away a player who you thought was good enough to give a $45-million contract before the season. He's going to be a good player for a long time.

But as much as I don't like losing quality assets, at least they would get one back this time (see above).

Q: Why couldn't the Mavs have traded Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard and Erick Dampier for Garnett and Ray Allen? You can brag all you want about Dirk being an All-Star, but the Celtics I believe have a real chance to win a championship.

Lewis P.

SEFKO: If you do that, you become the Timberwolves. Who is Garnett going to play with? Diop? Harris? Terry? Without Dirk or Josh on the team, the addition of those players doesn't guarantee anything.

The reason it's working so well in Boston is because the Celtics have another legit star, Paul Pierce, to team with Allen and Garnett.

Boston had what everybody wanted: a lottery pick and a potential superstar who had not yet reached his prime in Al Jefferson. The Timberwolves actually got a pretty decent deal for Garnett, as those things go. You never get full value for a star.

But the Mavericks didn't have any of those assets that the T-Wolves wanted.

What they did do was accomplish their main priority in that scenario. They got Garnett out of the Western Conference.

Q: Thanks for the great coverage of the Mavs this week. I was wondering if you could take a moment to respond to this question: With the blockbuster deals that went down last week, how is the Western Conference playoff picture affected? Do the Lakers have a legitimate chance of winning the championship this season?

Ryne N.

SEFKO: Right now, I could make a case for five teams in the West that have a legitimate shot: the Lakers, Jazz, Suns, Spurs and Mavericks. I just don't think Houston, Golden State, Portland, New Orleans or Denver is quite there yet.

The Lakers obviously got a huge lift when they got Pau Gasol for next to nothing. People are going to see how good this guy is when he doesn't have to be the best player on his team. He's an OK No. 1 guy. He'll be outstanding as a No. 2 behind Kobe Bryant.

The Lakers are the team now that is best positioned to barge into the Spurs-Suns level. The Mavericks would be next, along with Utah, followed by New Orleans and Houston.

Q: What exactly is a sellout crowd? I could clearly see empty seats at a recent game, but it was announced as a sellout. What gives?

Andrew.

SEFKO: A sellout occurs when all seats are sold, even if some of those buyers don't show up. I see the same thing you're seeing and I wonder just who is buying those last seats and giving them away to church groups or youth groups or whatever.

Mark Cuban has the right idea. He has a lot of nights when he sells upper-deck seats for $2. He doesn't make any money off of those. But he keeps getting to announce sellouts, and that means more eyes are watching the advertisements, more mouths are buying $7 beers and more hands are waving those foam fingers, which I have no idea how much those cost.

Yes, I do have experience with buying beers.

But for the most part, the Mavericks don't have a problem selling tickets. People enjoy this team and the in-arena experience.

Q: I know there has been more talk in Mavs' land to not put great emphasis about the regular-season record, but isn't it more important this year than any other to win the division? A fourth or fifth seed means a hard game in the first round and two more rounds against championship caliber teams.

Bobby L.

SEFKO: It isn't going to matter whether you are first, third, fifth or eighth this season. Your first-round opponent is going to be hard, no matter what.

Of course, it's preferable to have the top seed and home-court advantage, or at least have a home advantage in the first round. But we've seen countless examples of why that doesn't guarantee anything. Just last May, it was reinforced by Golden State.

The best hope is that this team gets hot at the right time. That's far more important than securing a high seed. This team is good enough to win on the road, even though it hasn't done so often enough this year.

Q: With Josh Howard not making the All-Star Game this year, why can't the league make a little more room on the bench? Why not have 15 players?

Nick, Houston.

SEFKO: Forget about it. Hardly any All-Star plays more than 28 minutes. Most play around 20. There really isn't enough time to go around for 12 players. If you have more, then you end up shuffling players in and out so much that it there is no continuity.

Just be happy to have a good player on your side in Howard. If he keeps doing what he does, he'll be an All-Star again. And there's nothing wrong with being a 20-point, eight-rebound guy, even if you never get voted into the All-Star Game.

I remember Otis Thorpe was a 20-and-10 guy for a couple years and never made it to the All-Star Game until he went from Sacramento to Houston. And when he finally made the event, he played four minutes.

He was still happy to be there.

Q: What has happened to their offense? They seem to be going through the motions much of the time without enthusiasm or toughness. A simple zone put them in a funk two nights in a row.

Warren.

SEFKO: Presumably, the easy shots that Kidd supplies would put an end to the work-harder-than-an-ox shots that Dirk Nowitzki has been getting of late.

Really, he's had to fight through two defenders all season.

The last two games have looked awful mostly because the Mavericks have been low on players. There's nobody to create shots when Howard and Harris aren't on the floor.

Assuming Kidd becomes reality, this should all change.

If it doesn't, then the Mavericks have far bigger problems than any of us could have guessed.