The Good German... and America's New Team!

I got to see the Mavs earlier this year.

So last time, here at the Underdogs, we were anxiously awaiting either the Memphis Grizz or the Oklahoma City Thunder to emerge from their seven-game battle for Underdog royalty status.  And even though the Thunder came through with flying colors and ended the NBA’s only Cinderella story since the 1999 Knicks (and that was during the lockout-shortened "non-season") what Memphis was able to accomplish, considering they’d never won a playoff game before and they’d lost their best player for good a few months back, was still pretty amazing.  So they have assured themselves honorable mention at least.  But the Thunder came up huge when it counted most, and the feel-good story became theirs.  A small-market team, perennially in the lottery, built almost entirely through the draft of quality character guys that fit well together within the system, had risen up to be one of the NBA’s elite teams.  These guys had been so patient with their players.  I’m not sure they expected to be this good, this fast.  Their confidence was at an all-time high... but then of course... they ran into the Dallas Mavericks.

Now, the Mavericks have been overlooked by this blog (and probably other various forms of Underdog Media) for a number of years, because they have been a consistently good team.  They’ve had one of the best players of the last ten years in Dirk Nowitzki, and always had a seemingly deep team around him (because of their owner Mark Cuban’s deep pockets.)  But they were actually the kind of favorite that underdogs loved to play against.  In fact, the 2007 Underdogs of the Year, the Golden State Warriors, pretty much earned their title by dismantling the number 1 seeded Mavs in six games; the only time an eighth seed had beaten a first seed in a seven game series, until the Grizz duplicated that feat this year.  The Warriors just overwhelmed Dallas in that series, and most of the country relished in the monumental collapse of those “pretenders” from Texas, that had also choked away the Championship a year earlier to the Miami Heat.  They were considered physically soft, mentally insufficient, and worst of all… un-clutch.

Jason Kidd and Dirk.  Two more Hall of Famers.

That year, Dirk infamously had to accept his MVP trophy during the third week of the playoffs, from his living room.  Usually it’s done on the court before a game.  It was the first time I’d ever seen that happen, and it had to have been a huge humiliation for him.  After all, this isn't baseball, where MVP’s have come from last place teams before, this is the NBA; MVPs always play for at least a few rounds in the playoffs!  Combine that disaster with a few more years of early playoff flame-outs, an aging, non-defensively oriented team, and a seven-foot star who seems more comfortable shooting threes than forcing the issue, and you have the Mavericks in 2011.  Nobody expected them to do anything in this year's playoffs, and that makes what they’ve done even more surprising!  (Well nobody except for my girl Stacey, I guess, who I saw the Mavs with earlier this year.  She's the biggest Mavs fan I’ve ever met, although at times she seemed a little bit more interested in Tyson Chandler’s arms than the score of the game.  Youch!  Sorry Stace)  This year though, suddenly out of nowhere, the Mavs appear to be the real deal, and most of the credit has to go to Dirk.     

Dirk's NBA career wasn't always all smiles.  

Dirk Nowitzki came into the NBA with no fanfare.  In 1998 the Milwaukee Bucks selected the unknown German with the sixth pick and then traded him to Dallas for Robert “Tractor” Trailor; a career underachiever out of Michigan.  Clearly most GMs didn’t think much of Dirk back then, because that trade turned out to be one of the most lopsided in history.  (In fact, Dallas GM Don Nelson also got Pat Garrity with Dirk and then flipped him to Phoenix for Steve Nash.  So, basically Nelson traded Trailor for two future first-ballot Hall-of-Famers!  That’s just insane.)

Early on, however, Dirk struggled mightily.  Back then European players still had the slow, un-athletic, and soft stigmas attached to them, and Dirk fit the bill in spades.  Offensively he tried to play down low with little success, and of course he got torched on defense.  More than a few people started calling him Irk Nowitzki… no D.  Interestingly he now plays on a team with the guy they used to call Ason Kidd… cause he had no J.  Hmm, not too much original thought going into those heckler chants eh?     

Owner, Mark Cuban with Kiki Vandeweighe.

Anyway, eventually the tide started to turn, when Mark Cuban bought the team and started investing in players to compliment Dirk’s revolutionary style.  They started utilizing him in ways unseen before.  The seven-footer could make shots from anywhere and was one of the best passers in the league.  And after a few years, when he decided to also start driving to the basket, it was on!  Marginal defense non-withstanding, he had transformed himself into one of the greatest weapons the league had ever seen and the Mavericks flourished.

So after being one of the worst teams of the 90’s, the Mavs have been prolific in the last eleven years, winning 620 regular season games.  But in this league, what you do in the regular season is a distant memory once May rolls around, and this year the Mavs were easily written off once again by every media person I heard and read.

Stacey.  While not checking out Tyson Chandler.  

Most people, other than Stacey and the Mavs faithful, had them losing in the first round to the sixth seeded Trail Blazers, (because it’s fashionable to pick at least one upset.)  Such disrespect!  No one had them winning the first round, no one in a million years would have predicted that they would sweep the Champion Lakers in the second round, and here they are on the brink of another berth into the NBA finals; a chance to exorcise the demons of that 2006 historic collapse.  Dirk’s even said as much.  No one believed in them, they got no respect, and you know what?  Third seed or not, that sounds like an Underdog to me!  So maybe Dallas was America’s team all along.  And now, our only chance at basketball salvation against the South Beach Talents.

J.J. Barea... the Hobbit.  

And Dirk has done it in incredible fashion.  Who is his best teammate?  A streaky Jason Terry?  A very old Jason Kidd?  “Seen-much-better-days” Shawn Marion?  Or Mr. Clothesline, 5 foot 6 J.J. Barea?  (Or at least he seems that short.)  No one has won a championship with this much of a drop-off between guys one and two in NBA history.  Even 2004’s Detroit Pistons had a more even talent spread.  So the Mavs are doing it on pure grit.  Preparation and fearlessness.  They are a team that just believes they can do it, against all the odds.  And that’s inspiring stuff.  Seriously, nobody saw this coming!!!       

So hopefully they can make it happen tonight against Oklahoma City.

And I really hope I haven’t jinxed em!!

Because America needs the Mavs.  And so do we. 

Underdogs OUT! 

Eat your heart out Stace!  :)