DALLAS - Self-evaluation.He’s one of only 13 people in NBA history to have won a championship as both a player and a coach. He’s also the only coach in the Dallas Mavericks’ franchise history to lead the team to a title. Still, despite becoming the Mavericks’ all-time winningest coach this season, Rick Carlisle admittedly heads into the summer with a sour taste in his mouth after coming up short in guiding the team back atop the basketball mountain once again.Leading the Mavs to a 42-40 record and into the playoffs for a 15th time in the last 16 seasons, Carlisle overcame piling injuries to help the team finish with the sixth seed in the Western Conference. However, after falling to Oklahoma City in five games during the first round of the playoffs, Carlisle and the Mavericks enter another long offseason that figures to lead to more roster turnover. And with a fourth first-round exit since capturing the NBA title in 2011, Carlisle will admittedly assess his own coaching performance this summer.”I will at some point sit down and go through it,” Carlisle confessed during his exit interview after the Mavs’ ’15-16 season came to an abrupt end. “You know, I’ve got very high standards for myself, so I’ll beat myself up. And I always feel like I’m someone that’s always learning more about the game, always working on being a better communicator and always working to cultivate my staff into future head coaches. You know, that’s just the way I see it.”Assuming the Mavericks’ coaching duties before the start of the ’08-09 season, Carlisle is tied with the Miami Heat’s Erik Spoelstra for the second-longest tenure in the league behind San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. He’s also taken the Mavs to four 50-win seasons during that span, leading team owner Mark Cuban and president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson to reward Carlisle with a reported five-year extension on Nov. 5 worth approximately $35 million.
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