Happy Father's Day

When I was a kid I was a Major Leaguer.  Yea, I also played little-league with the other guys my age, as well as football, soccer, basketball, tennis; pretty much any sport we could get our hands on.  But in the backyard, when my dad would say, “Hey Jeff, you wanna toss around the ole apple?”  We both transformed.  In fact, the whole backyard did.  Suddenly it was Shea Stadium or Wrigley Field.  I’m not sure where this game came from, if it was something he planned out or if we just kind of invented it together, but what it amounted to was two guys playing every position on the diamond, in the outfield, and in the commentator’s box!  And it was always the Chicago Cubs vs the New York Mets. 

Probably because in those days we didn’t have instant access to any major league roster online, or maybe just because we liked those teams the best, it was always those two teams.  Frozen in time circa their 1987/1988 rosters, as best we could remember them. 

The Cubs had Ryne Sandberg, Andre Dawson, Shawon Dunston, Mark Grace, Vance Law, Ron Cey*, Rafael Palmeiro*, Dwight Smith, Greg Maddux, and Rick Sutcliffe.

The Mets had Daryl Strawberry, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, Howard Johnson, Lenny Dykstra, Rafael Santana, Mookie Wilson, Wally Backman, Dwight Gooden, and Ron Darling. 

(* of course Palmeiro was long gone by the time Mark Grace joined the club and Ron Cey had retired by then I think.  But there they all were, somehow, in the backyard.)  

It would start with Dwight Gooden (me), pitching to Gary Carter (dad), in the top of the first at Shea.  He’d say, “and here comes Shawon Dunston to the plate, folks, to lead off the game.  Shawon has struggled against Doc Gooden over the years posting only a .165 batting average against him in his career.  He’s hoping to turn that around today, Harry.”  And then he’d say, “He sure is Mel, Doc has started to cost this guy some serious psychiatrist bills in the offseason.  Here comes the first pitch!”  I’d give him my fastball.  And he’d say, “Steeeeee-Rike one!  A heater right down the middle, and Dunston was a take all the way on that one, Mel!”  Then he’d throw the ball back to me and say, “No doubt about it Harry, Gooden knows he’s got Dunston’s number.  Gary Carter gives Doc the sign, Doc shakes him off… he wants to go heater again I think Mel.  And here comes the pitch... “

I’d throw another fastball.  “Swing and a ground ball to third base!”  He’d stand up and throw a grounder off to my right.  I’d run to it and field it, as he’d say, “Just inside the chalk, Howard Johnson comes up with it and turns to throw to first.”  I’d throw it back to him as fast as I could, while he transformed from Gary Carter to Keith Hernandez at first base.  “Dunston’s really on his horse, trying to beat the throw…”  He’d catch it, “but not in time!  Johnson throws out Shawon Dunston by a hair at first.  Yea, and good play by Hernandez, stretching out to reach that ball, Harry.”  He’d say to himself.

Mark Grace would follow Dunston, with a single up the middle.  Then Ryne Sandberg would hit a dribbler to Rafael Santana at short, who would try to turn the double play.  Santana (me) would snatch it and flip it to Wally Backman (dad) to get Grace at second, and then he’d turn to throw it to Keith Hernandez (me) to try for two.  I’d catch it.  “But Sandberg beats the throw to first!”  He’d interject.  “Backman held it just a second too long, Harry, and Ryno gets to first on a fielder’s choice.  And that brings up Andre Dawson."

"Yes indeed Mel!  And the Hawk’s already got 28 homers this year, as well as 10 against Gooden in his career.  Could he pull some long ball magic here in the first?”  I’d wind up and send along another heater.  “Here comes the pitch!  Swing and a drive!  Deep to right!”  He’d stand up and throw a fly ball over my head.  I’d turn and sprint toward the fence.  “Daryl Strawberry’s chasing it deep toward the warning track…”  Then Strawberry (me) would turn and snag it at the fence.  “And what a catch by Daryl at the warning track to save two runs, Harry.  I’ll tell you what Mel, that was a fantastic catch!  Doc Gooden knows that he owes Daryl a steak dinner later tonight for hauling that one in!”

Then the bottom of the first would come around and dad would become Greg Maddux, and I’d take over the commentating duties.  Mookie Wilson would single to left, Lenny Dykstra would strike out, and Wilson would get nailed trying to steal second.  Then Strawberry would blast a high fly ball to center that Dunston would catch at the warning track.  “Boy oh boy, Harry,” I’d say, “The crowd here at Shea was ready to explode if that one left the yard.  No doubt about it Mel!  Well that’s it for the first inning, we’ve got a good one going here folks!”

And it would continue like this for a few hours.  Usually the scores would end up being pretty high.  Like 9-8 or 13-11, including probably too many grand slams.  Just fun (if usually unrealistic) fan-friendly scores.  And invariably at some point, Gary Carter (dad) would come out to talk to Dwight Gooden (me) for a meeting at the mound, as would often happen in the majors.  And he’d say what he always assumed the catcher said to the pitcher in this situation, “Hey Dwight, what are you thinking about for dinner tonight?  You got plans after the game?”

Some of my favorite times happened in those backyards over the years.  And I’m sure to my mom, it looked like he was spending quality time with me and that he was a great dad (which he was of course.)  But to us it was a game.  It was the fun of the sport, and having no idea what was going to come of it.  The time would just fly by and pretty soon it’d be too dark to see the ball, so we’d have to call it, and we’d run in for dinner. It didn’t’ seem like he was “fitting me in” or “spending quality time with his son.”  It didn’t seem like he was trying to be a good dad.  It was effortless.  It was an unspoken connection, and as silly as it’s sounds, we bonded because of it; because of this wacky game.

To this day when I talk with my pops on the phone or even in person, we talk sports.  Somehow it grounds us.  Like I had to text him when I was at a Mets game a few weeks ago.  We were sitting right near the commentators booth, where Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling are calling games now.  Hernandez waved to me as I snapped a picture.  Or a few years ago when I was at a Brooklyn Cyclones game where Gary Carter manages the Mets minor league affiliate.  I had to give my dad a call because these guys, oddly or not, are kind of like old friends in our lives.  They used to play ball with us.  

My dad and I don’t only talk sports, but when we do get into it the time just flies, like it did in those old backyards.  In a way, it really is what sports are all about.  Connecting us in so many ways, not really possible in other aspects of life.  I remember one time when I was visiting my folks a few years ago and my mom set up a lunch date with just my dad and me.  She said, “Do me a favor.  Please don’t talk about sports the whole time!”  And she was right.  We do need to talk about other things.  We just need to be reminded sometimes.  So, thanks mom for that.

And thanks Dad, for all those backyard ballgames.  And all the other great times too.  You have been a huge inspiration in my life and are obviously, the greatest dad ever.  Right guys?

"There's no doubt about it.  What do you think, Mel?"
"Harry... I couldn't agree more!"

Happy Father’s Day Pops.

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.                                       

Good vs Evil

The NBA Finals have begun so let's talk some storylines.  Here are a quick five that I've been thinking about... in no particular order.    

1.) Jason Kidd.  Last week we talked about how the outcome of this Finals series will shape the legacy of Dirk Nowitzki, but the same thing may be even more true of Jason Kidd.  Kidd is going to go into the Hall of Fame as one of the best 7 or 8 point-guards of all time.  But his only memorable post-season runs came in the early Otts with the New Jersey Nets, when he lead them out of the paltry East to the Finals twice in a row.  And where they were promptly, completely destroyed by the Lakers and Spurs respectively.   Maybe considered the smartest player of his era, Kidd has never been shown the kind of respect reserved for Magic, Cousy, West, Oscar Robinson, Clyde Frasier, and Isiah Thomas, because those guys all won the hardware at some point.  And Kidd never has.  So where does his legacy go if the Mavs can win this title? 

2.) Erik Spoelstra.  Met with such harsh criticism during the regular season, mainly because of the constant media attention (and the writers' subsequent need to write something… anything) coach Spo has emerged from the pressure cooker unscathed.  And now he’s poised to enter that ever-elusive fraternity of NBA Champion coaches, possibly to be known from now on as the Jackson Club.  All-time great coaches Jerry Sloan, Don Nelson, Rick Adelman, George Karl, and Jeff VanGundy aren’t in it.  But Spoelstra now has a chance be a part of the Jackson Club, at the ripe old age of 40.  It may be blasphemy to say it, but he looks like he could become the modern hybrid of Pat Riley and Phil Jackson (He's only 16 titles behind at this point.)  The calm intensity and work ethic of Riley, coupled with Jackson’s ability to shepherd mega-talents, creating inventive ways to motivate them and improve upon their weaknesses.  In a league where you must have great talent to compete, coach Spo has been gifted an amazing opportunity, but he still deserves a lot of credit for the Heat’s success.  And this could be the start of something huge. 

3.) Shawn Marion (and Peja Stojakovic.)  The Dallas Mavericks have spent the last ten years adding talent intermittently to their glitzy roster.  Some smart, some just head-scratchers, but none were as surprising to me as the 5 year $39 Million contract they doled out to Marion in 2009.  What were they thinking?  The Matrix had his hay-day with Steve Nash and Amar’e Stoudamire in the mid Otts while playing with the high-flying Phoenix Suns.  But he was apparently unhappy as a third fiddle, and he eventually forced his way out of town.  After that, the world crashed down around him and he slipped into obscurity; it looked like he was completely done.  But in this playoffs he has been rejuvenated and has played a large role in the Maverick’s resurgence.  To a much lesser extent, the same can be said of Peja.  In fact, there's no shortage of career redemption stories that hang in the balance on the Dallas side is there?

4.) aaand of course, Good vs Evil.  Okay, we’ve probably made too much noise about this particular theme here at the Underdogs, but what it really does is describe just how drastically these two teams contrast each other in style, personnel, hype, and how each team was constructed.  The Mavericks have played together for years, battling adversity together.  They have succeeded and failed over the years, and as I’ve alluded to earlier, they have now, almost poetically, been offered this one chance at redemption.  They represent stability, humility, perseverance, and a team that is truly more than the sum of its parts.  

The Miami Heat on the other hand have, fairly or not, come to represent excess, entitlement, arrogance, and big man on campus type status.  They were constructed in a way that no team in history had been before… overnight, and it instantly transformed them into a champion contender, seemingly without having to really earn it together on the floor.  That’s why America hates them.  America doesn’t like skipping steps, or any deemed honor given prematurely.  When a big flashy new-bully-on-the-block preens and gloats, predicting years of dominance before even playing a single game, (like LeBron did when he joined Miami last summer) America wants one thing… come-up-ance!  More than anything else in the world.  It’s like my boy, and Honorary Underdog Austen said the other day.  He wants to make a t-shirt that says, “I’m a __________ vs Miami Heat Fan!”  And you know those would sell!  It’s so odd, but the Heat have united America!  And the Mavericks represent the last hope against this mighty Evil-Empire-to-be.  It’s Luke’s one chance to destroy the death star, before it becomes too powerful to overcome.  Because very soon, it will be too late.        

This is the story of the Finals.  It is overly dramatic and possibly completely irrelevant, because all that’s really going to happen is that these two teams are going to go out and try to beat each other.  And it figures to be wonderfully entertaining ball.  For all of the Miami “Hate” they have been playing marvelously together these past weeks and the Mavericks have as well, so all that’s left is the showdown.  And that brings us to our last storyline. 

5.) The Refs.  Are they going to let them play?  Or are they going to call fouls every time LeBron and Wade drive to the basket and get bumped?  Will the Heat shoot 50 free-throws a game?  Oftentimes fouls are subjective, and the Heat’s attack options have the potential to make things really difficult for those guys.  Hopefully they’ll let them play and only blow the whistle when absolutely necessary, because the last time these two met in the Championship in 2006, the series was swung by some very questionable calls.  It needs to be more even this time.  Every fan has to accept that the refs are a big part of the game… but let’s just hope they're not the story!    

Enjoy the Finals. 

Underdogs OUT!              

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!  :)

    

             

Game 7 for The Western Underdog...

Many people have said it.  This has been the best NBA season in recent memory.  Maybe even the best in 20 years or so.  There has been no shortage of great storylines to digest and the basketball has been just beautiful.  It stood to reason then that these playoffs would be equally as intriguing, and they have lived up to the hype. 

At the start of the season, I think that most people would have expected Miami to be one of the last teams remaining on May 14, but Chicago?  Well, maybe.  Dallas?  Probably not.  Oklahoma City?  Hmmm, a long shot.  Memphis???   Not on your life.  

This bizarre disparity is a big part of what has made this post-season so great for the fans.  Gone are the old standbys; the Lakers, Celtics, and Spurs.  Since 1999 those three franchises have combined for 13 Finals Appearances.  The remaining five teams at the moment have 2 total.  Both from the 2006 Finals when Dallas met Miami; and this Miami team only has two members remaining from that squad (and one of those two, Udonis Haslem hasn't played since November.)  So really no matter which way the remaining games go, history is going to be made.  And possibly, new dynasties are going to be started.

But the road to the Finals will have to wait until after Game 7.  Or as we call it here at the Underdogs, The battle to become America’s Underdog team.  The Grizzlies vs the Thunder!  (Fair-weather fans had no idea there were NBA teams with such names! :) 

Fasten your seatbelts!  Cause it's for All the Marbles! :)
Underdog Style.   

The Dramatic Exit of the Lakers and Phil Jackson

Wow.  So… that just happened.  In case you were stuck under a rock this weekend and hadn't heard, the Dallas Mavericks completed a shocking sweep of the two-time defending champion LA Lakers on Sunday.  And it wasn’t even close.  The Mavs were better in every way and incredibly, somehow simply dominated the mighty Lakers (much to the delight of Underdogs everywhere, including this one.)  But we will get to the Mavericks later, as they wait to see who their next opponent will be in the Western Finals.  For now we have to focus on an ending.  Because the NBA’s greatest coach of all time has coached his last game.   

Everyone knows about the absolutely amazing string of championships that Phil Jackson was able to put together during his time in the NBA.  He won two championships as a player in New York, six as a head coach in Chicago, and five as a head coach in Los Angeles.  For a grand total of thirteen rings!  And his staggering eleven in twenty years of coaching, is by far the benchmark that all coaches will be judged against for the rest of time.  His overall winning percentage for the regular season as a coach is an unbelievable .704, and his playoff winning percentage is almost as good at .688.  Statistically he is, by far, the best coach the NBA has ever seen.  But as gaudy and as glamorous as his final numbers will stand, enshrined forever in the Naismith Hall of Fame, we should never forget how hard it was for him to get here.  Phil Jackson was a genuine Underdog. 

Could this uniform BE any more 70s?

Jackson had seriously humble beginnings as a lanky forward coming out of the Division 2, University of North Dakota.  He was drafted 17^th in 1967 by the Knicks and stayed there eleven years, but this was back when most players needed second jobs in the off-season to make ends meet.  By the time his playing days were done in 1980 he had those two championships rings, with the Knicks (as a bench player,) and modest career averages of 6.7 points and 4.3 rebounds to show for it.  But what was next?  Back then there weren’t hundreds of TV jobs or assistant coaching spots just waiting for former players like there are now.  “Coach” Jackson had to struggle to make it happen. 

Phil spent many years coaching in obscurity in the CBA and in Puerto Rico, hoping to finally get a chance to get back to the NBA and all the while wondering if it would ever be worth it.  Finally he got his chance as an assistant coach under Doug Collins with the Chicago Bulls in 1987, and when Collins got fired in '89, Phil took over.  And the man never looked back.  His teams won the championship in eleven of the next eighteen years that he would coach.  In the modern NBA, no other coach even comes close to that standard.  His success is unfathomable.  His resume reads like Shakespeare or Woody Allen… It’s just too much for one man to have done.  He’s eleven for thirteen in NBA Finals Appearances.  They really should just name the trophy after him. 

Now detractors will tell you that Phil’s gaudy record owes itself purely to the fact that he’s always somehow coached extremely talented players, and that is true to a point.  In his dealings with high profile players, Phil re-wrote the book on how you deal with the modern NBA player, psychologically.  His “ego-management” became his most impressive attribute.  He didn’t pretend that all players were the same and would respond to the same treatment.  So from Michael Jordan to Bill Wennington to Dennis Rodman to Shaquille O'Neal, he was able to get all of his players to focus their respective energy on the common goal, collectively.  In other words, yes, the talent needed to be there first but Phil was the guy that could make all that talent work together on the basketball court. 

Phil has had three eras as a coach.  In Chicago he was the hippy zen-master, battling the establishment with new and fresh ideas based in many philosophy.  Then in his first five years in LA he became the establishment, and he somehow morphed into “Evil-Emperor” mode, appearing much more smug and arrogant than he did in his previous incarnation.  These days though he is more of an old wise man, seemingly enjoying his “last days” as a coach.  He seems friendlier and much more introspective.  And now, after going down convincingly to the Mavericks in four games (his team completely unraveling around him) he seems finally ready to retire from the game and head to his beloved ranch in Montana.  

And although it hardly seems fitting that the man who in twenty seasons of coaching in the playoffs had never been swept in a series, somehow got swept out of his final one, that is indeed the way it went down yesterday.  The Mavs were amazing.  Even Phil had to admit that they outplaying the Lakers across the board.  But even though yesterday belonged to Jason Terry, Peja Stojakovic, JJ Barea, Dirk Nowitzki, and the rest of the Mavericks, for now at least, history still belongs to Phil. 

Underdogs Out.

America's Team!

So far in the second round of the NBA playoffs we’ve seen the Celtics get bullied by the Heat, the Bulls get upset on their home court, and most shockingly, we’ve seen the Lakers drop their first two games at home to the Mavericks (did you see Kobe's expression?)  But the most compelling story so far has got to be (Drum Roll please)... that the Memphis Grizzlies have become America's Team!

Okay, so maybe my proclamation is bit of a reach, but they really should be.  Featuring an assorted and compelling cast of characters and a coach who was an assistant for 18 years before getting the gig two years back (and still I'd never heard of him,) these guys have somehow managed to do the impossible.  Their first round matchup against the mighty Spurs was case-in-point. The Four-Time Champion Spurs had the best record in the West this year.  The Grizz had the worst record in the Western Playoffs, had never won a single playoff game in history (much less a whole series,) and they had lost their “best player” Rudy Gay for the season a few months back.  Plus, only once before in history had an eighth seed beaten a first seed in a seven game series.  The odds were significantly stacked against them.  It was the Evil Empire vs Luke.  Rocky vs Apollo Creed.  America Loves this stuff!!!

Will Z-Bo's Smile Continue?

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich didn't look at it that way though.  After losing Game 6 and the series, he openly admitted that the end result was no fluke, quipping to reporters with a defeated but sentient smile, "People might look at this and call it an upset... but they don't know the West.  They haven't seen these guys play."  What have I been saying for years people?  The West is vicious!   

 

Anyway, despite Pop's attempt to diffuse some of the drama, the Grizz are certianly the biggest underdog left in the race.  This young group of scrappy upstarts has the full attention of the league and the only thing left to wonder is, "Um, how far can they go?"  Can they handle the pressure cooker?  After watching them defeat Oklahoma City rather convincingly on the road, only a day and a half after dispatching the Spurs, I started thinking the unthinkable, like "Ummmmm… can these guys actually win the West???”

Lionel Hollins has taken his team into uncharted waters.  

This notion, previously thought to be completely ridiculous (if thought of at all,) now suddenly doesn't seem like such a stretch. If they can continue to get such inspired performances out of Z-Bo Randolph, Marc (Little Bro) Gasol, and Mike (somehow I got good really quickly and rather unexpectedly) Conley, it might just be possible. And then where would we be? The entire league would be turned on its head! There are no Cinderella stories in the NBA. The system of drawn-out playoff series' all but prevents them. Yet here we are. Could we have our first real Cinderella-type run since the Knicks of ‘99?  Well, here's hopin'!  The league may not want it, but basketball fans and underdogs everywhere would relish in it!

So as the basketball world continues to marvel at Miami’s Dynamic Duo, the Bulls’ fearless tenacity, and the Mavericks’ uncanny control of the Lakers, a big chunk of attention also has to be focused on a place altogether expected; Memphis, home of the mighty Grizz.  America's Team.  And hey, if they can’t make it out the second round, America’s team would simply then become the Oklahoma City Thunder.  Aw y'know… It’s not personal... it's an Underdog thing!

Here's to the little guy!  (Figuratively speaking of course.)

and Thanks for Reading,

J