‘It’s About Time’: Finley Gets College Jersey Retired; Will Mavs Follow Suit?
On Sunday afternoon at Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin, Michael Finley received one of the best tributes an athlete can be given - a jersey retirement.
The University of Wisconsin honored the former Badger by raising his No. 24 into the rafters at halftime of the team’s 77-63 win over Michigan. Finley averaged 18.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game in four seasons at Wisconsin. He’s also the only player in school history to average over 20 points per game over a span of three seasons.
“It’s about time,” said Finley, who is usually pretty soft spoken. Finley helped put Wisconsin basketball on the map, and he was long overdue for this honor nearly 30 years after he played his last game as a senior.
It’s also ‘about time’ that the Dallas Mavericks retire Finley’s No. 4 in the American Airlines Center rafters. Finley spent more than half of his 17-year NBA career in Dallas, where he was a two-time All-Star and averaged 19.8 points per game on 44.6 percent shooting from the field and 37.6 percent from deep.
Mark Cuban and the Mavs have been notoriously stingy when it comes to jersey retirements. Instead of mainly focusing on the what the players produced while in a Mavs uniform, it seems that too much stock gets put into how the players left the franchise.
"The way I've kind of looked at it, and it's no disrespect to Mark (Aguirre), is guys who wanted to leave are going to have a harder time than guys who made the effort to stay,” said Cuban on 96.7 The Ticket when asked about Aguirre potentially having his No. 24 retired.
“That’s just in in a nutshell.”
So what about Finley? That logic being used for Aguirre doesn’t seem to fit for Finley, being that it was the Mavs that ended up waiving him in 2005 after failed attempts to trade him. Is it because he decided to sign with Dallas’ in-state rival San Antonio Spurs and ended up winning a championship two years later? Is Finley somewhat ‘making up’ for that now that he’s the Mavs’ Vice President of Basketball Operations?
Regardless of what the delay is, the Mavs need to rectify the situation and get Finley’s No. 4 in the rafters alongside his buddy Dirk Nowitzki’s No. 41 sooner than later.
Life is short, and sports franchises should celebrate their best athletes any chance they can get. It took nearly three decades for Wisconsin to retire Finley’s number. Hopefully it won’t take the Mavs that long.
