Najera frustrated

Last year at this time, Eduardo Najera was a training-camp darling, playing so much better than the Mavericks' three highly touted first-round draft picks that he opened the season as a starter at small forward.

But lingering groin injuries hindered Najera's progress during this year's training camp. What's more, the second Mexican-born player ever drafted by the NBA started the season Tuesday on the injured list with tendinitis of his left knee.

"It's very difficult for me to go through this, especially since I was expecting more out of me," Najera said. "I was expecting to do better things and I haven't been able to show that yet.

"But it's a long season. You never know what's going to happen. I'd rather start slow during the season and end up improving a lot later in the season than I did last year, where I started pretty good at the beginning and I ended up not playing a whole lot."