Time for Mavs fans to receive big payoff
Winford Boynes tossed in 21 points, Tom LaGarde grabbed 14 boards, and the Mavericks beat San Antonio by 11. I was in a half-full Reunion Arena that night 25 years and nearly eight months ago when Dallas joined the world of big-time pro basketball.
Of course, that wasn’t the biggest news of the day in Dallas, certainly not to a reporter for the Daily Oklahoman. The University of Texas beat the Sooners, 20-13, at the Cotton Bowl that afternoon in 1980. This would be one of many Dallas events to overshadow the city’s new basketball franchise for years to come.
It took two decades and the arrival of Don Nelson and Mark Cuban and Dirk Nowitzki and Avery Johnson to finally get this thing right. It’s not Red Sox or White Sox in terms of waiting 80-plus years for redemption, but 26 years is a good test of faith in itself.
By that alone, the Mavericks should beat the Miami Heat in this intriguing matchup of teams that arrived in the league after Magic Johnson. Miami fans had only to wait 18 years to see their team win a conference title.
Those extra eight years should count for something in terms of courting destiny, especially considering the lean times that Mavericks fans endured.
In the decade of the ’90s, Dallas had the lowest winning percentage of any team in the NBA. Or NFL. Or NHL. Or Major League Baseball.
From 1990 through 1999, the Mavericks never made the playoffs and won 30 games once in that dismal stretch. The Heat has had some down times, too, but nothing compared to the Mavericks’ wander through the wilderness.
Nowitzki could not recite all those numbers in the wake of his team’s 102-93 victory over Phoenix. But he made it clear that he understood where this team had come from.
“When we first got here, it was rough,” he said. “I mean, we were in that old arena. It stunk. It was bad.
“When I first got to Dallas, nobody really knew us and you could go out anywhere. Nobody was paying attention to the Mavericks really.”
That was eight years ago. Everyone’s paying attention now. Everyone in Dallas. Everyone who follows the NBA.
The Mavericks – this still seems startling when you think about it in the grand scheme of things – are actually favored to win the NBA title.
Dallas won more games than the Heat this season. They beat the Heat twice, one of them so bad that Pat Riley questioned whether his team had what it took to become an elite team equal to the Mavericks.
That was a long time ago, and Riley has the Heat playing much better now, and the team does have Shaquille O’Neal, who loves to beat up on Erick Dampier in particular and Dallas in general. So this is no cakewalk to a trophy presentation for the Mavericks.
But this is a team that understands where winning comes from. It started under Nelson, and the team almost overachieved its way into the Finals three years ago before losing to the Spurs in six games.
Nowitzki was the star of that team, too, but that’s where the similarities to the 2003 team end. The 2006 edition is a team that went to San Antonio and won a Game 7 in overtime against a team as formidable and as championship-worthy of any team in the league.
This is a team that could speed up the Spurs when it needed to, could slow down the Suns when it had to.
This is a team that has believed it when Avery Johnson started talking about winning championships from the first day he was hired to replace Nelson.
This is a team four wins removed from joining the Cowboys and the Stars as Dallas teams to celebrate championships. Those four victories won’t be easily obtained, but beating Miami four times with the home-court advantage won’t be more difficult than beating San Antonio four times without it.
It has been a long wait. Since the Mavericks came to life 26 years ago, 15 franchises have been to the Finals.
Two new names will be added to the list later this week. If longer waits and humble roots count for anything, then Dallas fans deserve to be the ones cheering at the end.
