𝟭𝟯 𝗬𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗔𝗙𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗠𝗣𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦𝗛𝗜𝗣, 𝗗𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗦 𝗠𝗔𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗦 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡 𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗘𝗠𝗕𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗔 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥

 

Dirk Nowitzki

Most Brownsvillians who are NBA fans gravitate to the San Antonio Spurs, not a bad fan choice at all as I certainly admire Coach Popovich.

But, during my decade or so in north Texas in my waning years of employment, I got attached to the Dallas Mavericks.

In those days the talk was about a young German kid of high school age who'd kicked ass in an exhibition against the likes of Scottie Pippen and Charles Barkley, scoring 33 points against NBA stars.

The outspoken Barkley took it upon himself to walk into the visitor's locker room to ask a skinny, teenage Dirk Nowitzki "Who the hell are you?"

Dirk, at that point, was unsure he was even good enough for the NBA despite being drafted by Dallas.

Don "Nellie" Nelson, Sr., retired in Hawaii

It took then coach Don "Nellie" Nelson, Sr. making a personal trip to Germany to drink beer with Dirk's dad to convince the kid to try his hand at the highest level of basketball in the world, as up to that point Dirk's only basketball experience had been with a second-tier level league, the Second Bundesliga, South Division in Wurzburg, Germany. 

Dirk ended up playing 21 years with the Dallas Mavericks making a legendary championship run in 2011 and I watched every single game.

The Mavericks until recently were owned by Mark Cuban, sort of a brilliant dumbass like Elon Musk who became a billionaire by founding broadcast.com and selling it for $5.7B in 1999.

Mavs fans have a love/hate relationship with Cuban dating from his breaking up the team after winning a championship in 2011 because he didn't want to reward the players with salary increases.

Cuban, who takes pride in "always being the smartest guy in the room," has proven that not to be true more times than not since.

Kyrie Irving, Luka Doncic

Anyway, the current post-Nowitzki Mavs are led by a 24 year old superstar, Slovenian Luka Doncic and the notorious anti-vaxxer Kyrie Irving.  

Doncic, who's been a professional basketball player since joining the European League at the age of 13, is simply a basketball savant, while Kyrie Irving, despite his reputation for weirdness, is a wonderful, extraordinarily skilled second man, sort of a player-coach, who makes everyone else on the team better.

Mavs GM Nico Harrison

The team's general manager, Nico Harrison, came to the NBA after working 19 years for Nike, not the traditional route perhaps, but has actually done an excellent job the last two years in drafting players and restructuring the team into a possible contender.

One of Nico's draftees, Dereck Lively, a 19 year old center, has joined Doncic and Irving in forming sort of a "big three" of superbly talented players.

At the most recent NBA trading deadline that ended February 8, Dallas added a much-needed power forward and backup center in P.J. Washington and Daniel Gafford, giving the Mavs help in rebounding and overall height the team's been lacking.

Of course, there are 30 teams in the NBA all vying for the championship only one can win, but many Mavs fans, myself included, are more optimistic than they've been in years.

 

Dereck Lively