Kidd Nonsense

So yesterday, Mavericks fans went from "Is Kidd coming here?" to "Kidd is coming here!" to "Kidd isn't coming here." in what seemed to be a matter of hours. The stumbling block is apparently Devean George, who has the power to block a trade thanks to his "early Bird rights" (and if you'd never heard of that before yesterday, join the club.) Local DMN sports guy Tim McMahon says it isn't even in Devean George's interests to do so, and that the owner Mark Cuban is willing to play hardball with George and his agent to make them understand that those rights will be meaningless if he permanently scuttles a deal with the Nets (and it's especially odd considering George asked for a trade only a couple of weeks ago.) I still think a deal will go through. Cuban, who's taken a long time to come around to the idea that that Mavs in their present form cannot win a Final, is not going to let an exception in George's contract stand in the way (and my local radio boys on the Ticket make it sound like George maybe just needs a little cash to make the problem go away anyway.) And there's no way this team goes on like normal, with half the players knowing their owner, GM and coach wouldn't mind them being somewhere else. Still I find myself wondering why this mess with George comes out of left field. Why wasn't the Mavs front office aware that George wouldn't sign on to a trade, or that he could potentially block this trade? If they were aware, why didn't they handle it before everybody in Dallas and New Jersey seemed to think the trade was already a done deal? I'm no GM and maybe trades are a bigger surprise to players than their agents then I think they are, but it seems to me if you've got a guy who could potentially block a trade, you get that settled first. Right?