As Mavs training camp begins, one last chance to appreciate Dirk
It’s only been five or six months since Dirk Nowitzki retired. That seems impossible. I just saw him a couple of weeks ago at his charity tennis event, and a few months before that at his Heroes charity baseball game. That’s been the typical Dirk schedule the past few years. Season ends. Give back to the community. Back to Media Day (which is today at Mavs HQ, and of course DallasBasketball.com will be all over it) and back training camp.
But it really hit me again two Fridays ago when I drove to Austin. The Dallas Mavericks have a few billboards on 75 South. I saw all of them. I saw Luka Doncic. I saw Kristaps Porzingis. I saw Jalen Brunson. I even got a peek at Tim Hardaway Jr.
But none had Dirk on them. None. And that’s when it really sinks in.
No more Dirk. He may do a cameo at training camp media day on Monday, slip into practice here and there to shoot around and chat with his former teammates. As DallasBasketball.com reported exclusively, part ownership in the Mavs is something owner Mark Cuban would certainly entertain for the GOAT (Greatest of All Time, as if you need the context). I sense that he’ll be present on many game nights, and I don’t just mean the Dirk fadeaway silhouette planned for the American Airlines Center floor this season. Perhaps Dirk can do a stint as a part-time bench commentator with the boys on Fox Sports Southwest?
It’s been more than two decades since the Mavs had to build a marketing campaign without Dirk. Of course, it helps ease the pain when you have the reigning Rookie of the Year in Doncic and a player dubbed “The Unicorn” (that would be Porzingis). When Nowitzki arrived in 1998 the Mavs had nothing. The franchise was in tatters. Rudderless. Practically hopeless.
Back then, Dirk was “The Unicorn” a 7-foot, 3-point shooting German. Three-point shooting 7-footers didn’t exist back then, not even by accident. I don’t believe any NBA scouts or coaches knew how Nowitzki would fit into an NBA that wasn’t built for a player of his unique abilities.
Now he’s one of the best players of all time. He remade the league, and the league now values the things that made Dirk such an outlier 21 years ago.
When I wrote this piece earlier this year, it was meant to be part-Dirk appreciation and part history lesson. It occurred to me during the ebb and flow of his final season that there was a generation of Mavs fans — basically millennials — that didn’t know the Mavs that I knew growing up in Generation X (not to carbon-date myself). The Mavs that soared as an expansion franchise in the 1980s, the Mavs that crashed and burned and became the league’s laughingstock in the 1990s and the Mavs that Dirk inherited when he arrived in Dallas in 1998.
As the Mavs prepare to assemble for training camp without Dirk, it’s important to remember the context of what Dirk means to Dallas, not just as a player and retiree in the now, but how he helped set this franchise back on course after the dystopian 1990s. After all, you have to know where you’ve been if you want to know where you’re going, right?
And what those Mavs were when I arrived in Texas in 1979 was, well, nothing.
Dallas-Fort Worth didn’t have indoor professional sports at the time, unless you counted minor league hockey and minor-league basketball teams. The Dallas Chaparrals had moved to San Antonio. You had the Dallas Cowboys and the Texas Rangers and that was it.
But in the fall of 1980 the Dallas Mavericks played their first season in the NBA. My father took me to a game in December at Reunion Arena. The Mavs were playing the San Antonio Spurs. I didn’t know anything about the NBA, nor that I, as a Mavs fan, was supposed to hate the former Chaparrals (to this day I find it difficult to muster any sort of hate for the Spurs). That night the Spurs were the far better team, with players like George “The Iceman” Gervin and James Silas (who went to Stephen F. Austin, my alma mater). The Mavs were as green as those classic road uniforms. Brad Davis was with the team by then, but he didn’t even play in that game. The leading scorer for the Mavs was some guy named Geoff Huston.
But the unfamiliar names of players like Jim Spanarkel, Bill Robinzine and Tom LaGarde hardly mattered to me. I was hooked. I loved it. The Mavs were my team and have remained my team ever since. But goodness they were bad. Just 15 wins that season. First-round pick Kiki Vandeweghe held out and forced the Mavs to trade him to Denver. But that was a blessing. The Nuggets gave us two first-round picks. Later the Cleveland Cavaliers would trade us just about anything for the basketball equivalent of a sack of rocks. Mavs general manager Norm Sonju didn’t want rocks or players. He wanted draft picks. And it got so bad at one point that the NBA stepped in and said the Cavs couldn’t trade with anyone anymore. But by then the damage was done. Sonju had loaded up.
In 1981 the Mavs had two first-round picks — their own (Mark Aguirre) and the Nuggets pick at No. 9 (Rolando Blackman). In the second round the Mavs took Sam Vincent and Elston Turner. All made an impact. Two more first-rounders in 1983 yielded Dale Ellis and Derek Harper. In 1984 the Mavs had two more first-rounders, and Cleveland’s pick brought Sam Perkins to town.
By then the Mavs were a freshly-minted playoff team with a playoff series win (you’ve heard of the Moody Madness game, right?). All of the hard work was paying off. Yes the NBA was dominated by Magic’s Lakers and Larry’s Celtics, but the Mavs were the model expansion franchise, practically perfect in every way. Build through the draft. Supplement with free agents. Draft a German (in this case, Detlef Schrempf). The Reunion Rowdies were a thing. You knew it was a big moment when you heard “Shout” on the loudspeakers. Brad Davis’ perm disappeared. The 1987 Division title. Dick Motta left. In came John MacLeod. Roy Tarpley. The 1988 Western Conference Finals.
Let’s stop for a second. I was 15 during those Western Conference Finals. Once again, the Lakers were in our path. But for the first time we pushed them. I mean REALLY pushed them. We pushed the Lakers to seven games. And I thought, even with that Game 7 in Los Angeles at the Forum, we had a chance. I still think about that fourth quarter, why Aguirre sat for so long. The Mavs lost by 15. But I had hope.
We didn’t know it at the time but the next year, 1989, the Lakers would lose to the Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals. They were vulnerable. And no Western Conference team was better positioned to take over than the Mavs. Or so we thought.
Tarpley’s drug and alcohol problem eventually led to his ban from the league. And he was talented, too. Like, maybe Hall-of-Fame one day talented. The Mavs started getting older and players looking for one last shot at a title, like Blackman and Harper, left. Sonju managed to trade the disgruntled Aguirre for a player that was MORE disgruntled in Adrian Dantley. Aguirre got his ring. The Mavs got migraines. And it only got worse. MacLeod was fired. Then Richie Adubato. Then Gar Heard. Then — I shudder at the mere thought of these words — Quinn Buckner.
Buckner was the single stupidest thing the Mavs ever did. It was basketball so bad I was compelled to write a poem about it for my student newspaper at Stephen F. The Mavs won 13 games during that 1993-94 season. I went to one of those games, a Warriors game after an SFA-North Texas football game. We drove in from Nacogdoches. Darren Morningstar was in the pivot. The highlight of that game was a Polaroid (yes, Polaroid) with the Mavs Dancers and my best friend asking me “Do you know who Latrell Sprewell is?” (I did not at the time).
Thankfully Sonju cut bait, fired Buckner and somehow lured Motta from his Idaho fishing cabin to take over. And for a few years hope came in the form of three straight lottery picks — Jim Jackson, Jamal Mashburn and Jason Kidd. The “Three J’s.” See? We even had the marketing covered. For a brief moment, it could be rebuilt.
Then, Toni Braxton. Or at least that’s the rumor. Someone on a radio show in Dallas asked Braxton if there was a love triangle between her, Kidd and Jackson. She said she didn’t kiss and tell. She was promoting an album. And it all went to hell again. The Three J’s all say Braxton had nothing to do with it. It was young egos. By December the Mavs traded Jason Kidd to Phoenix. I had the unfortunate timing of actually being IN PHOENIX when the trade happened.
Dec. 26, 1996. I was on a family trip to see my grandparents in Phoenix. The internet wasn’t a thing. There was no chatter in Phoenix about a trade until the evening news. The local station led with it. Kidd was a Sun. I was pissed. My grandparents were in the room. My mom could see my face. She said, “Take it outside.” So I did. For about five minutes. Lots of swearing. I scared coyotes. I liked Kidd. Then I came back in, watched the sports portion of the local news and asked aloud, “Who the heck is Michael Finley?”
The Mavs took a wrecking ball to the whole thing. We went from Three J’s to No J’s and no hope by April of 1997.
Somehow the Mavs had convinced Don Nelson to take over this mess as the general manager in 1996. I was familiar with Nelson — the fish ties and Run-TMC (Tim Hardaway, Mitch Richmond and Chris Mullin). He loved fast-break basketball. He inherited Jim Cleamons, Phil Jackson’s top assistant from the Michael Jordan Bulls. On Dec. 4, 1997, Nellie couldn’t resist taking the reins for himself. He promptly hired his son, Donnie, as an assistant.
Those 1997-98 Mavs were bad. But by then I was a sportswriter in Corsicana, just a short drive from downtown Dallas. And the paper there had Mavs credentials. So I burned plenty of gas up and down I-45 that winter covering Mavs games. What made it perfect was Corsicana was an afternoon paper. So by noon my day was done, unless I had games to cover.
I covered roughly half the home games that season. I made that auxiliary press row at Reunion Arena my second home (and it would have made a better apartment than the one I had). I managed to talk my way onto the floor to shoot a few games with my Dad’s Pentax 35mm camera that he bought while on leave in Australia during Vietnam. Gary Payton nearly ran over me. I’m pretty sure Sarah Melton, now the team’s VP for Communications, was a PR intern. I was there the night of the double-OT win over the Bulls, with that absurd turnaround corner 3-pointer by Cedric Ceballos to send it to overtime. I went to the Bulls’ locker room after that game. I ended up five feet from Michael Jordan and that was fun until every local TV camera decided to use my 5-foot-8 frame as a camera stand. Plus there was the dude from one of the local radio stations who told Mike after the interview that he was “wearing his cologne.” Ohhhhhhkaaaaayyyy.
That might be my favorite Mavs season. I got to cover it as a real beat for one year, even though no one really paid attention to me. No one was paying attention to the Mavs either, least of all the team’s owner, Ross Perot Jr. If the team’s original owner, Donald Carter, was its passionate champion, Perot Jr. was the direct opposite. He was in it for the payoff, which eventually came in the form of the Victory Park development. But he was the perfect owner for those 1990s Mavs. He didn’t care. Neither did most folks in the Metroplex.
Dallas hadn’t sniffed the playoffs in nearly a decade. But with that anonymity came the freedom for Nellie and his son to chart their own path. When you win 20 games, you really have nothing to lose, right?
So why not get a 7-foot German who shoots three-pointers?
Now, understand something. Going into the 2018 NBA Draft EVERYONE knew about Doncic, and I only had a passing interest in the guy. You couldn’t go anywhere on YouTube or ESPN without knowing who he was. That was in large part due of Dirk. Because, back in 1998, you only heard whispers about the Mavs taking him in the draft. If you run into someone who says they knew who or what Dirk was back before the 1998 Draft they either covered the team, worked for the Mavs or they’re lying to you.
I knew practically nothing about Dirk. And, once again, I was out of town when it went down.
That summer I was traveling around and seeing relatives. I was between jobs and moving from Corsicana to Tyler. Before starting the new job I was off to Tuscaloosa, Ala., to see my cousin Amy and her husband Adam. I had a request. I wanted to watch the draft. Amy had a request. She wanted to play Scrabble. That night I felt like I lost twice.
While Amy was destroying me at Scrabble the Mavs were screwing with me. The internet was now a thing, but the Dallas Morning News — my paper of choice — barely had a Web site. I’m not even sure Amy had internet access. I was flying blind. The Mavs came on the clock and selected Michigan forward Robert Traylor. I was happy. I had heard of the guy. I saw him play in the NCAA Tournament. I liked what I saw. He was tall, large and threw elbows. With the next pick, the Milwaukee Bucks took Dirk. I sat there, trying to turn seven consonants into a word, thinking to myself, “OK, that worked out. Let someone else take that gamble on that guy.”
Then, a few minutes later, the NBA announced that the Mavs and Bucks had swapped draft rights. They had worked it out before the draft. Mavs would take Traylor. Bucks would take Dirk. Then they would swap. Dirk was wearing a Mavs hat now. Traylor was a Buck.
Then ESPN started rolling footage of Dirk. I hadn’t seen it before. It was grainy, almost like a Zapruder film. He was shooting outside. He was shooting 3’s. He wasn’t playing with his back to the basket. He was running the floor like a guard. My first reaction was not “Boy that guy is something completely different and I love it.” My first reaction was, “Doesn’t this guy rebound? He’s seven feet tall.”
That’s where I’ll admit to my narrow-mindedness. I grew up on the true center. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Chief (Robert Parish). Jack Sikma. Moses Malone. These guys were the trees. They lived in the paint. They scored. They rebounded. They threw elbows and didn’t mind if they drew a little blood in the process. Their successors were guys that did the same thing — Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning. That was the NBA back then. If you were 7-feet tall, you played down low and threw your weight around.
It never occurred to me that a 7-footer could shoot a 3, run the floor or dribble like a guard. I’m not sure it occurred to anyone 21 years ago. Most NBA scouts looked at Dirk and probably said to themselves, “Well, that’s what they do in Europe. This is the NBA and that won’t fly.” I probably said some variation of that. I thought it wouldn’t translate.
Donnie Nelson, who had spent a ton of time with Dirk abroad during the scouting process, seemed to be the only one that had the vision to see that it might work. So he convinced his dad to work a deal to get Dirk to Dallas. And after 10 years of failure, I just figured, well, here’s the next thing that just won’t work.
Two days later, of course, came the press conference. Dirk flew in from Germany and the Mavs also hosted their other big draft-night acquisition, guard Steve Nash, who came in a trade from Phoenix. Now THAT I was excited about. I saw Nash in the NCAA Tournament. He led Santa Clara to that big upset of Arizona as a No. 15 seed in 1993. I didn’t see the whole video until I returned home. I was still traveling. But I saw the highlights on ESPN. I saw Dirk and Nash sitting at a table and thought to myself, “My God we’ve assembled two-fifths of NSync. Why does Steve Nash have frosted tips?”
I thought we were screwed. The past decade had beaten me down. I wasn’t open-minded about it. I thought the whole thing was doomed to failure. And the first season didn’t help. The Mavs were under-.500 in a strike-shortened season as the Spurs won their first title. With every 3-pointer Dirk hoisted up I just thought to myself, “I don’t understand what we’re doing. I just don’t.”
It turns out we — or, well, Dirk — was redefining what a 7-footer could be in professional basketball. More importantly, the Nelsons were letting him, as was new Mavs owner Mark Cuban, who was also busy remodeling the Reunion Arena locker room, improving the team’s post-game towel thread count and sauntering onto the floor to back up random Mavericks during on-court scuffles.
Dirk wasn’t a typical superstar-in-the-making. He didn’t have an entourage nor did he want one. He did have a sensei, however, one who has taken on a cult following here in Dallas. Holger Geschwindner, the man that tutored Dirk and with an almost Yoda-like mantra, molded Dirk into the player he became. Geschwindner played basketball himself in Germany, met Dirk when he was 16 and started coaching the former tennis player. His drills were quirky. His philosophy was non-traditional. He runs a basketball academy called the “Institute of Applied Nonsense.” It was, in its own way, perfection. A non-traditional coach for a non-traditional player. The Mavs learned over time to let Holger be Holger and let Dirk be Dirk because it got results.
Cuban was the perfect owner for this team, too — deep pockets and willing to spend whatever was necessary to win. The dotcom billionaire would eventually outgrow being JUST an NBA owner. But in the nascent days of Dirk’s tenure in Dallas it was Cuban, the Nelsons and the Mavs’ version of the Triplets — Dirk, Nash and Finley. And away we went.
For the next several seasons the Mavs gathered steam. Dirk led the charge. His offensive game improved. His defensive game improved (enough). He showed he could rebound. He added that nearly-indefensible silhouette fadeaway jumper. By Year 3 of his career I was on board, right around the time the Mavs re-upped Dirk to a 6-year, $70 million extension. At the time, I thought, “They’re going to find a way to keep these three guys together.” In hindsight it was all about making sure the Unicorn didn’t slip away.
Eventually Nash had to move on because Cuban wouldn’t show him the money and the Mavs were becoming playoff frustrated again (to Cuban’s credit, he now says his worst mistake was not keeping Nash). Finley was eventually released, too, and he drove south to San Antonio. Even Nelson couldn’t hang in much longer. Shortly after Nash and Finley left, Nelson handed his whistle to his top assistant, former Spurs guard Avery Johnson, and told the players during a practice it was Johnson’s team now. No lie. That’s how it went down. It’s perhaps the most bizarre coaching transition in NBA history (OK, maybe not most. But find me a Top 5 above that?).
Change is inevitable. Dirk became the constant. If they were going to win a title, Dirk would lead the way.
And that’s sure as hell how it looked in 2006. The Mavs won 60 games. They waved away the Grizzlies in Round 1, won a classic 7-gamer with the Spurs and then got the better of Nash and the Suns in the Western Conference Finals. The promised land. Finally. The NBA Finals. Twenty-six years of waiting. And, ONCE AGAIN, I was out of town. But at least I was in an advantageous position. I was living in south Florida.
I was pursuing my dream of being an NFL writer with a mid-sized newspaper in Port Charlotte, Fla. I was elated, to say the least. Perhaps I was the most obnoxious I had ever been in my entire life about a team? My former co-workers might say that. Anyway, that wasn’t the real problem. I had a cash flow issue. I was a working journalist, which is kind of like saying you’re a working actor, if you know what I mean. There was really only one game I could go to due to my schedule — Game 5 in Miami. And it wasn’t my decision alone to make. I was engaged at the time. Fortunately, she (now my ex) loved Dirk and she loved the Mavs and we made it work. So overpriced tickets for Game 5 it was.
You know what happened leading up to that game, right? The Mavs won the first two at home. Someone leaked the parade route, ticking off most of Miami. The Heat won the next two games, including the Mavs blowing a 15-game lead in Game 3. Dwyane Wade decided he wanted to be a superstar. Avery had the team change hotels between Game 4 and 5 and go to Fort Lauderdale, 45 minutes away from downtown Miami, which makes about as much sense as me securing a date with Sarah Michelle Gellar. I mean have you driven in Miami traffic, people? Doesn’t matter what time of day. You’re better off taking a boat down the Intercoastal Waterway to the game.
The afternoon of Game 5 we blazed a trail across the Everglades, a three-hour drive to Miami for the game. A few days before I was actually HOPING the Mavs would lose one game, just for the chance to see them secure the title in Game 5. Now it was a tied series and the atmosphere in the arena was just nuts.
It was White-Out night. I wore one of my Dirk All-Star jerseys. She wore my dark blue Dirk jersey. We stuck out to say the least among 19,000 T-shirt wearing Heat fans. It was as loud as any basketball game I have ever been to in my life. It was the best game of the series, in my opinion. The game went to overtime. The refs were dispensing foul shots to Wade like Pez. But the Mavs hung in there. They were right in it.
And then the “backcourt” violation on Wade that wasn’t called.
And then the foul to send Wade to the free throw line.
And then the Josh Howard timeout after the first free throw.
And then Dirk kicks the ball into the stands as the clock expires, sort of his Bob Lilly throws his helmet moment.
And then Cuban goes crazy.
And then I just sit there feeling like I just had my heart ripped out of my chest Thanos-style.
I didn’t want to get up. I just sat there for a few minutes trying to make sense of what had just happened. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have the context for everything that viewers at home had (plus, no Twitter. I know, RIGHT??). Then we finally got up to leave. No wandering around South Beach for us, and for good reason. As nuts as it was inside the arena, it was even crazier outside. Heat fans were insane. We tried making our way toward the upper level escalator and someone tapped me on the shoulder.
“Don’t go that way. Follow me.”
A Radio Disney employee led the two of us down a near-vacant stairwell for one of the most depressing walks of my life. You could hear the Heat fans losing their minds, even inside the safety of that staircase. He told me, “This is gonna be a better way for you guys to get out of here. You don’t wanna be a part of what’s happening out there.”
He was right. The way we exited was much quieter and featured fewer Heat fans (and the ones that we ran into were at least mature enough to say “good game” and move on). That drive back sucked. Three hours of near-silence. I had waited for that my entire life as a basketball fan.
My team in the NBA Finals.
Me in the building with my team in the NBA Finals.
Me in the building with my team in the NBA Finals and watching them lose an overtime game wasn’t part of what I pictured.
Two nights later I watched Game 6 on my TV. The Mavs lost by 3. I watched the Heat celebrate at my home arena from the comfort of my TV. I’m glad I wasn’t there. I was at Reunion Arena the night the New Jersey Devils skated the Cup after Game 6 of the 2000 Stanley Cup Finals. That I could somewhat stomach. I was still a relatively new hockey fan. Plus, the Stars had won a Cup already. But this, watching Wade and Shaq whoop it up in my arena? Where’s the toilet? I need to vomit.
After a night of sleep I started seeing the silver lining. Dirk didn’t have the best series vs. Miami but he was in his prime. This was a great team. No one was going anywhere. Avery was a good coach. This wasn’t the post-1988 Mavs, I convinced myself. And I was right. But not in the way I had imagined.
The next season was banner-season stuff for the Mavs. They won 67 games. A franchise best. Dirk had the best season of his career and earned his first and only MVP award, the first Euro to do it. He joined the 50-40-90 shooting club, only the fourth player to do it. Everything was set for the Mavs. For the first time they were the No. 1 seed in the West. If you want the ticket for the Finals, you gotta go through Dallas to do it. So come on. And then…
Nellie.
What. The. Hell.
Nelson said he left the Mavs in March of 2005 for “family reasons.” Later he admitted that he lost interest in coaching because Nash left. Really? You’ve got Dirk and you’re NOT having fun? Wow. OK, cool. Head to Maui and smoke some stogies. We’ll have your prime rib from the Palm flown to you. It’s all good. Lova ya, dude. Come back anytime.
That lasted 17 months. Nellie’s former player and then-Warriors general manager Chris Mullin lured him back. Mullin gave Nellie a blank check, which is what he loves. Remake the team in your image. And that he did.
After the Warriors won 42 games and squeezed into the Western Conference playoffs as the No. 8 seed, their opponent would be the Mavericks. Yes, the Warriors had won all three regular-season meetings. Yes, Nellie knew Dirk like the he knew every square inch of his table back at the Palm. Yes, the Warriors were talented. But this was the NBA Playoffs. The Mavs were coming off a Finals run. They were the more experienced team. And, besides, no eight seed had ever beaten a No. 1 in the best-of-7 format.
Ummmmmmmmmm…
I watched from Florida as the dream of an NBA title died in a six-games series with the Warriors. Everything Nellie learned in Dallas he turned against Dirk. That’s how this works, of course. Nellie wasn’t there to give Dirk a free pass because they were friends. Nellie had some axes to grind against Cuban, too. He did it on the floor with a young, hungry Warriors team that did something historic. Normally, I’m all about history. But not the night of Game 6 when Stephen Jackson put Dirk on lockdown and he had probably the worst playoff series of his life. I sat there, in my living room again, and watched the season end with no satisfaction. Only this time it was worse. This was the best Mavs team we had ever had. And we lost to an Eight seed. It was nearly 2 a.m. on the east coast when the game ended. I slept on the couch. I had no energy to walk back to bed.
The next three seasons were this sort of weird netherworld where the Mavs were very good, but not necessarily great, and the Mavs eschewed the draft and kept signing veterans to grease their path back to the Finals (seriously, go look at that draft history. It ranges from non-existent to awful). The Mavs traded for, of ALL people, Jason Kidd. They snagged Caron Butler and Shawn Marion. They reached the playoffs each season, only to run into a roadblock. Dirk became the franchise’s all-time leading scorer and finally had a triple-double. After the end of the 2009-10 season, Dirk re-signed for four years, $80 million. At the time I wouldn’t have blamed him for leaving. Things felt snake-bit. By then I had moved back to Dallas from Florida and started going to games again. But everything felt different after that Finals loss. Nothing felt quite right to me.
In the context of the time, with the Mavs falling short every year and Dirk continuing to rack up individual accolades, he seemed to be headed toward assuming a mantle that no one in any pro sports league wants.
The best player in your game to never win a title.
Then came 2010-11.
By this time I was out of sportswriting full-time. That was something I never thought would happen to me. I did a short stint with the Texas Rangers as their director of publications, a dream job for a guy like me. But when Tom Hicks finally realized you can’t own three sports teams on credit, some of us in Arlington had to go so they could make payroll. Now I had a normal job in a non-sports field. As I drove to lunch near my office I was listening to the radio, probably 105.3 The Fan, which was pretty new at the time. Cuban was discussing the Mavs’ prospects that season. During that appearance he said, “I really believe that we have a legitimate shot of winning the NBA Finals this year.” This was in October.
My reaction? “What is he smoking and why isn’t he sharing?”
Let’s review those 2010-11 Mavs, shall we? Dirk. Jason Terry. Kidd. Marion. Butler. Brendan Haywood. Ian Mahinmi. Dominique Jones. Tyson Chandler. Roddy Beaubois was on that team. So was J.J. Barea. DeShawn Stevenson. Some guy everyone called the Custodian, Brian Cardinal. We later snagged Corey Brewer in March and, just because, Peja Stojakovic, our personal early-oughts nightmare.
This team is gonna get us to the promised land? Really? Oh, and there’s that Carlisle guy running the ship. Didn’t he get fired in both Indiana and Detroit?
I was uninspired. I still went to games. But as I watched these guys on the floor, both in the arena and on TV, I kept thinking, “Second round. At best.”
The Mavs finished as the No. 4 seed in the West. That meant a first-round series with the Portland Trail Blazers. That Portland team was good, too. LaMarcus Aldridge. Marcus Camby. Gerald Wallace. Nicolas Batum. Andre Miller. Brandon Roy. Some guy named Wes Matthews.
The Mavs won it in six and they did it with toughness, claiming the series on the road with some clutch play from Dirk. After the 2006 Finals and the 2007 debacle with Golden State, the Mavs had a rep — soft. Dirk had a rep — soft. You don’t change the narrative with one game. But Dirk poured in 33 that last night in Portland, grabbed 11 rebounds and sent the Mavs on to the second round against …
The Lakers. Ugh.
The Mavs had never beaten the Lakers in a playoff series. Their last meeting was that 1988 Western Conference Finals. Plus, this was Kobe’s Lakers. They were the two-time defending champions. And this was Phil Jackson’s last season on the bench. This was his valedictory. The Lakers were the No. 1 seed. No one is screwing with this, right?
Game 1 was in Los Angeles on a Monday night. It was a late start. As a country we had just learned the U.S. had found and killed Osama Bin Laden. Amid that backdrop the expectation was that the Lakers would just take their next step.
Nope, actually, the Mavs won Game 1, as I watched on TV back in Dallas. Dirk had 28 points and 14 rebounds. The Mavs won by 2. Dirk made the go-ahead free throws. I thought, “OK, so, that’s great. We beat the Lakers on the road. But you know they’re coming back in Game 2.”
And the Lakers did. But so did the Mavs. Dallas won Game 2. The series came back to Dallas with a 2-0 lead. I was happy, but I wasn’t bought in yet. Not even after Game 3, when the Mavs won, 98-92. Sorry. I’ve been snake-bit by the Lakers too many times. Nope, not having it yet.
Then Game 4. On a Sunday in Dallas. The Lakers might as well call it Bloody Sunday. This game will always be remembered for what Terry did that afternoon. Nine 3-pointers. The Mavs made 20 3’s that day. Stojakovic was perfect — 6-foot-6. If he had been wearing Kings purple it would have been a nightmare. But in Mavs white it was heaven.
The Lakers were done. In four games. In seven days. It was an exorcism. All the bad karma just flew off me. The Lakers were no longer our white whale. I believed now. The Thunder were next.
The Thunder was a completely different animal. Kevin Durant. Russell Westbrook. James Harden. They were all young and hungry. They were probably a year ahead of schedule. And, sometimes, young and not knowing any better can get you far in the NBA playoffs.
But against the Mavs it only netted the Thunder a five-game loss. The key was the Mavs’ toughness on the road, yet again. Dallas went into OKC and won both games. By the time the Mavs clinched the series and their second berth in the NBA Finals, they had won five of seven playoff road games. Soft? No sir, not anymore. And we were going to show everyone that on the national stage against … the Miami Heat?
I’m sorry. Did I accidentally build a time machine and use it?
The Heat was relevant again? Yep. And you know why, right?
LeBron. The previous summer was the “Decision.” James moved to South Beach, brought Chris Bosh with him and, along with Mavs nemesis Wade, formed the “Super Team.” Remember, it was “titles” not “title” as LeBron descended upon South Florida. Miami was everything Dirk wasn’t — flashy, look at me manifest destiny. James set the Cuyahoga River on fire on his way out of Cleveland. Next stop — his first championship ring.
Funny, Dirk was thinking the same thing.
The Heat beat the Bulls to win their series in five games the next night. Game 1 was in five days in South Beach.
But, you know what, I thought. It’s been five years. Five. Long. Years. This is a different team. And if we’re going to spend the postseason exorcising every demon this franchise has ever encountered, then let’s just do it right and finish the job.
Game 1? Mavs lose by eight. Dirk tears a tendon in one of his fingers. Seriously?
Game 2 was the first Thursday night in June. I watched from my living room. I was wearing my Dirk road jersey, the same one my ex wore to Game 5 in 2006. I actually thought about not wearing that jersey that night. But I didn’t give a damn.
We all know what happened that night. So why belabor it?
The Drive, please?
If there were any lingering doubts about this team’s toughness, they were put to rest that night. The Mavs were down huge in this game and rallied back. Dirk scored the final nine points. Then that drive to seal it in a tie game. The Heat put Bosh on Dirk and he used him. The only thing that would have made it better was if the drive had been on James.
And you know this photo right? Same night, right after Wade’s desperation 3-pointer failed to fall.
I screamed when that layup went in. The dogs were not amused. One of them was so startled that she ran out of the house through the pet door and stayed outside for five minutes. She poked her head back through the pet door with a look that said, “What in the @#!$% was that?!”
That was the Mavs making it a real series. Back to Dallas.
I didn’t have the money to go to a Finals game that year, so I had to watch on TV. The Heat won Game 3 to make it 2-1. Then came Game 4.
First, there was the flu.
If you’re an NBA fan of a certain age you know about the “Flu Game” — Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals. The Bulls faced the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City and Jordan came up ill. Of course now we know it could have been food poisoning. Or a hangover. But regardless, he felt awful and ended up scoring 38 points, including the go-ahead 3-pointer. Jordan was tough that way.
Well, before Game 4 Dirk came down with a sinus infection and flu-like symptoms. Perfect timing, right? It didn’t keep him from work, though. He was relentless. He had 21 points and 11 rebounds. He played 39 minutes. This was the game where Carlisle made the savvy move to put Barea in the starting lineup. The Heat had no one that could defend Barea.
Dirk had another amazing drive, this time on Udonis Haslem, to give the Mavs a 3-point lead.
The series was tied 2-2. Then came the disrespect. Cue the tape.
Good sirs, how dare you call Dirk a liar. I wonder if he heard about that …
I’d like high-quality burns for $500, Alex?
Dirk was, once again, magnificent, in Game 5. There was the 29 points, but also the 10-for-10 at the free throw line. It was another huge fourth-quarter run for Dallas, 15-3 down the stretch. But it wasn’t just Dirk. It was Jason Terry. It was Kidd. It was Chandler. It was all the guys I had no faith in eight months earlier.
The Mavs went back to Miami with a chance to clinch their first championship.
The day after Game 5 the Mavs announced that they were going to open the American Airlines Center for Game 6 and have a huge watch party. Tickets were free, but you had to come to the arena to get them. I worked downtown, about a five-minute drive from the arena. I sped over and got the maximum — four. If we were clinching in Game 6, I wanted to be somewhere close to the action. If I couldn’t be in Miami, then the American Airlines Center would have to do.
That night we turned the a AAC into the largest sports bar in Dallas. There might as well have been a game going on in front of us, as full and as electric as the place was. We all knew if the Mavs lost Game 6 they would likely open the AAC up again for that one, too. But I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to get it done that night. And as we consumed beer and food and whatever else the AAC had to offer, we found ourselves inching closer and closer to history.
The big screen inside the American Airlines Center after the Dallas Mavericks won Game 6 of the 2011 NBA Finals. (Photo by Matthew Postins)
Late in the fourth quarter it became clear that the Mavs were going to win. It was euphoric inside the AAC. For Mavs fans like me it was 30 years coming. For Dirk it was more than a decade coming. The final seconds ticked off. Mavs started celebrating on the sideline. Everything was finally coming together. And Dirk left the floor.
Wait? What?
The biggest moment of his basketball life and Dirk couldn’t deal with it. Neither could we, really. But we didn’t have the luxury of retiring to a locker room to process it all. We processed it together as a group inside the AAC. Dirk walked to the locker room. The emotion was clear. You could see the people walking behind him with this look of “Dude, where are you going? Trophy’s out there?”
Imagine the biggest moment of your life and you have such a hard time dealing with it that you just … can’t … process … it.
"I had to get a moment,” he told ESPN later. “I was crying a bit. I was a little emotional. … I actually didn't want to come out for the trophy, but the guys talked me into it."
Thank God he came back. The moment was perfect. That entire team on that makeshift stage. David Stern handing the Larry O’Brien Trophy to Mark Cuban, who then handed it off to Donald Carter, the team’s original owner. Then to Dirk. And then Bill Russell hands the MVP trophy to Dirk.
I’ve heard stories about the party that night in South Beach. DBcom has all of those stories for when we finally writes that book. That will be a chapter worth reading. I went to bed without a care that night. Not a single one. The Mavs were finally champs. Dirk was finally a champ. It could not have happened to a nicer person.
Dirk Nowitzki waves to the crowd during the 2011 NBA Champions parade in downtown Dallas. (Photo by Matthew Postins)
A few days later, the parade. Working just a few minutes from downtown had its advantages. My friend Melanie and I walked over to the parade route, where Houston meets Lamar and we waited for Dirk to float by. And that’s what it looked like over all of the people in front of me — like he just floated by. For all I know that’s what he did. A couple of days after achieving all you’ve ever wanted in your career, a little levitation isn’t out of line, right? After the parade passed it was back to the office to watch what happened inside the AAC on TV. We didn’t get a lot of work done that day.
It’s been eight years since that parade. That’s incredible to think about now. There is so much about that time that I still remember without prompting. It’s one of those things you live on for the rest of your life.
Of course, after any championship comes a reckoning. And the Mavs had theirs. Cuban’s desire was to maximize Dirk’s championship window. He broke up the champs, anticipating a “new NBA,” one that revolved around the assembling of superstars, such as the ones the Mavs had just vanquished in Miami. Problem was “Plan Powder” never worked. No stars wanted to come to Dallas to play with Dirk and the Mavs’ relative disinterest in the NBA Draft caught up to them. Cuban assembled around Dirk what he could find on the free-agent market each season, but all it did was lead to first-round playoff losses until 2016, when the Mavs started missing the playoffs entirely.
By then I was back covering the Mavs as a writer. Each night I went, I always waited for Dirk to come out afterward. He got plenty of treatment after the game, trying to keep that body as fresh as he could. He always had three towels on and he always gave us as much time as we need. Dirk was always been accommodating that way.
On those nights I wonder to myself, “How long will he keep doing this?” It’s a question I heard asked as early as 2012 when I went back to writing about the Mavs. How much longer will he keep playing? As far as all of us were concerned, Dirk could play as long as he wanted. But there are always those who worried he’d overstay his welcome, as if he was some sort of amiable, directionless houseguest.
Early in the 2013-14 season Dirk talked about how much longer he hoped to play. He was 35 at the time. He didn’t describe his future in years. He described it in minutes. He felt his body had anywhere from “10,000 to 15,000 minutes left in it.” I had never heard a player put his remaining career in terms of minutes before. I found it interesting and thoughtful.
So I added up the minutes. From the start of that 2013-14 season to the end of his career Dirk played 11,226 minutes. One might say Dirk squeezed every last bit he could out of that 7-foot body.
I always thought, “Stay as long as you want, Dirk.” Even in that last season the jump shot still worked. Who were we to tell someone when to stop working? One thing I’ve learned covering pro sports — when it’s over, it’s over. If you’re an athlete that can play at a high level, don’t walk away until you know you can’t anymore.
No one wanted it to end. Yet, here we are. Dirk is clearly happy with retirement, clearly happy with his role in the community and whatever role the Mavs want to throw his way.
Thanks for proving me wrong, Dirk. Enjoy retirement. You’ve clearly earned it.
Now on to today's Media Day, and this week's training camp, and the next era, because that’s how sports works, right?
