The Trials and Tribulations of the Dallas Mavericks

In the year 2000, I was on the National Tour of Grease with Cindy Williams and Eddie Mekka (of Laverne and Shirley fame) and we passed through Dallas in late November/early December.  On one of our Mondays off, I found myself walking around the downtown area with no real plan; as I love to do while on tour, just wandering around and finding whatever I happen to run into.  I walked in awe through Dealey Plaza, which looked eerily exactly the way it looked in those old grainy photographs, and went to the old Book Depository, now the Sixth floor Museum, for the first time (I would go three more times on subsequent visits over the years.)  I checked out the JFK memorial around the corner, and eventually ended up in Reunion Park.  That’s when I looked up and saw a big, old, sports arena, across the street and I realized, that must be Reunion Arena!  Where the Mavericks play.  I hurried over excitedly, wondering if they happened to have a game at home that night.  (In the days before iPhones you had to check these things out in person, kids.  Or buy a newspaper.)  I rushed across the street and as luck would have it, they did have a game that night against the Denver Nuggets.  I eagerly bought a ticket and then set off to kill a few more hours before tipoff.    

I had been reading about the Mavs a little bit since I had been in town.  They were excited about their young nucleus of talent surrounding their all-star shooting guard Mike Finley, which included Steve Nash (a budding point guard who had just started to flourish as a starter there after only getting spot minutes behind Jason Kidd in Phoenix) and a seven-foot, non-center, German kid named Dirk Nowitzki.  The team had also recently been purchased by a young, brash, internet-billionaire named Mark Cuban, who at first glance just seemed like another crazed super-fan.  You could see that he loved being at the games.  He was exuberant and demonstrative, he wore Mavericks T-shirts and sat right behind the bench.  He was like no owner we’d ever seen in sports, and he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.  Let’s just say the gated-community types were shocked by this guy!  But I loved it.  It seemed exactly like some average dude had won a contest and was suddenly in charge of his own NBA team.  It’s every sports fan’s ultimate dream!

Super Fan/Owner Mark Cuban with Kiki Vandeweghe

Of course Cuban wasn’t an “average dude.”  He was a shrewd and wildly successful businessman, even at his relatively young age, and his ambition quickly spread into his new passion.  He dedicated himself to the task of turning around the fortunes of this wayward franchise.  The Mavs had been the worst team of the 90’s.  They hadn’t been to the playoffs in ten years, and had only won twenty-one playoff games in their twenty-year history.  They flirted with posting the worst regular season record in NBA history twice, in back-to-back years.  In the 92-93 and 93-94 seasons the team totaled 24 wins!  That’s out of 164 games in case you didn’t know.  They were just awful.  I was playing basketball in high school back then, and if somebody was having an off-day shooting or was turning the ball over a lot, they’d say, “Sorry ya’ll, I’m all Mavericks right now.”  Or if I went to a party with my buddies and it was kind of lame, the code word you had to slip into a sentence was “Mavericks” as in… “Hey, this sucks, can we get out of here?”

It was this perennially losing culture that Mark Cuban felt he had to immediately change, and the locals were starting to buy into it.  He changed the logo, the uniforms, the advertising campaigns, and word was out that they were going to build a new flashy arena.  You could feel the new energy of hope in the air.  Plus the team was looking light-years better on the court.  Dirk wasn’t an All-star yet but he had emerged as a solid scorer, and he, Finley, and Nash were giving the crowds a lot to cheer about.  I remember Reunion Arena being an antiquated building by NBA standards even then, but the crowd was amazing.  They were so into the game!  And when the Mavs pulled away from Denver convincingly in the fourth quarter the crowd cheered like it was the NBA Finals.  And this was a game in late November!  Undoubtedly it was a by-product of all of those years of despair.  A win, any win, anytime, was glorious.  They celebrated it jubilantly, and I was impressed.  I remember later that night telling one of my hoops friends, “Hey, I know this sounds crazy, but I think the Mavs are going to start being good!”        

Over the next decade the Mavericks were one of the best regular-season teams in the league, but all of their success was muted by their glaring failures in the playoffs.  The names and faces alongside Dirk changed consistently over the years but the stigma never went away, even after a Finals appearance in 2006.  Like Dirk himself, the team was considered by most to be physically soft, mentally insufficient, and worst of all… un-clutch.   They could never seem to get over that hump.  Cuban’s work wasn’t done.

Until last night.

Coach Carlisle and Jason Terry were both giants against Miami 

Fast Forward from 2000 to game six of the 2011 NBA Finals.  The Mavericks’ journey through the years has been a long and treacherous one.  An odyssey though the peaks and valleys of the NBA’s viciously competitive landscape.  And on this night in Miami, Dirk needed a lot of help (the thing critics said he didn't have enough of) because he was struggling mightily, and Jason Terry answered the call.  He made huge plays all over the place, carrying the team for three quarters offensively, while Dirk's shot sputtered.  In fact the Mavs got solid contributions from almost everyone, keeping them in the game and holding the Heat at bay.  But in the fourth quarter Dirk returned to form and came through multiple times in the hugest of moments; the very definition of clutch.  And as Terry, Dirk, Shawn Marion, JJ Barea and Jason Kidd finished off the Heat in the closing minutes, you could feel the stigma being lifted away.  Forever.  The Mavericks had finally made it to the promised-land.

As the clock expired, the Mavs bench along with Cuban went wild, but Dirk just walked alone to the locker room.  It was so strange to see.  He looked bewildered; numb, like it was too much to take in.  It actually looked kind of like he had just lost!  After all those years, after all of the disappointments and the criticism, he could finally let himself go there.  He had finally done it.  But there was so much emotion involved that he needed to be alone in order to let it in.  He had to breathe it in, in his own time.  He had to die and be reborn.

Eventually he came out and raised the championship trophy and did interviews, but he still looked stunned.  Like it hadn’t sunk in yet, and understandably so.  But it will sink in soon, and he will celebrate the end of the odyssey with his teammates.  And along with the city of Dallas. 

In 2000 it would have been ridiculous to say it, (and honestly I didn't think that this year's incarnation would reach this pinnacle either after the loss of Caron Butler for the season) but the words can finally be uttered; for the first time in history.

The Dallas Mavericks are the NBA Champions.

They demolished the odds.  They made believers of doubters.  They played incredibly as a collective unit with seamless, interchangeable, and complementary parts.
They are the best basketball team in the world.  

And they are quite possibly... the best Underdog we’ve ever seen!
Thanks for Reading.