*Note - This is, by far, my longest blog entry to date. Grab some coffee and a snack; this might take a while.
But I would've been excited. Because, while all the teams in the Metroplex had their chances to win a championship, none were as consistent or lovable as the Dallas Mavericks. I mean, think about all the players that have played for this franchise since the 1999 Stanley Cup. From Nash and Finley to Nick Van Exel to Jamison and Walker to Devin Harris to Jerry Stackhouse to Najera to Dampier to Jason Terry. And, of course, the consistent factor - Dirk Nowitzki.
The Cowboys have built their way up. 13-3 and a bye one year and a couple division titles. But, at the end of the day, they only have one playoff win.
The Stars were great at the beginning of the decade but struggled in the playoffs since. They had one magical run that ended against the hated Red Wings but little else.
The Rangers spent most of the decade in financial turmoil following the signing of Alex Rodriguez. They only had one playoff run, but it was also quite magical...ending in a World Series defeat by the San Francisco Giants.
But the Mavs were always there. 50-win season after 50-win season. Like clockwork, the Mavs were slashing through the regular season. But something always happened in the playoffs. They ran into the wrong team, the wrong player, or the wrong matchup. Along the way, something happened and they ended up losing four games in a series.
And after last season, it was hard to think of how the team would rebound. They lost a first-round series to a San Antonio team that was supposed to be passed its prime. But they had a big trade chip in Erick Dampier, and there was speculation that Dampier's contract, due to a special clause that allowed a team to cut Dampier with no salary cap ramifications, could be used to get a great player like LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, or Chris Bosh.
Of course, all three of those guys signed in Miami, and Dampier's contract was traded for Tyson Chandler.
The rest of the Metroplex yawned. My friend Tim was mad. I was intrigued.
A few years ago, Tyson Chandler was on a New Orleans team that ripped through the Mavericks in the first round. It was the same series that exposed Jason Kidd's age and got Avery Johnson fired. He was strong, athletic, and defensively powerful. It was something the Mavericks of my lifetime had never had.
The knock on Chandler was never that he wasn't good. Or even potentially great. The knock on Chandler was that he was fragile. And so most Dallas basketball fans were thinking that Chandler, who had an expiring contract, might be more trade fodder. After all, the Mavs had just given a max contract to Brendan Haywood to be their starting center.
But, just in case, I monitored the US Basketball team at the World Championships. Word was that Tyson Chandler was healthy. And word was that Tyson Chandler was playing well.
Then the season started. And, for the most part, the team that had lost to San Antonio was back. There was Dirk, as consistent as ever. And Jason Terry. And Jason Kidd. And Shawn Marion. All a year older and moving in the wrong direction.
But we had a full training camp with Caron Butler. And DeShawn Stevenson. And Haywood. And there was the Chandler piece that everyone was so unimpressed with.
And, out of the gate, the Mavs got some wins. In fact, out of the gate, the Mavs were one of the best teams in the league. They were ripping through teams, and they were beating up really solid teams. By January, there was talk that the Mavs were one of the best teams in the entire NBA.
Then, while I was in LA celebrating TCU's Rose Bowl victory, I heard the bad news. Butler was hurt, and he was going to have season-ending knee surgery.
Oh well, I thought. So much for that. I thought there was a chance that the Mavs could trade Butler's contract and get something. But as the trade deadline approached, there wasn't much talk about trading him.
What Donnie Nelson did, instead, was piece together more role players. He got Peja Stojakovic, a player I hated from his days in Sacramento, as a sharpshooter off the bench. And after the deadline, he got Corey Brewer...a young defensive-minded player who was released by New York.
And I started thinking that this team had something. By this point, we knew that Tyson Chandler was a beast that had completely focused the Mavericks usually-weak psyche. As if he'd lifted the team on his shoulders, Tyson was the new heart and soul of the Dallas Mavericks team that now preached defense as much as anything else.
What impressed me (and ESPN's Marc Stein) was the team's versatility. If they wanted scorers, they had plenty (Terry, Peja, JJ Barea). If they wanted defensive players, they had plenty (Marion, Stevenson, Brewer). They could play big and they could play small. And they still had a centerpiece in Dirk Nowitzki that was capable of changing the game.
But as the season came to an end, it started to wane. Brewer wasn't getting on the court, despite being added late. Rodrigue Beaubois was back from injury, but he was playing terrible. The team was slaughtered by the Lakers, and interest in the Mavs was waning.
Ashley walked in one night during one of the season's final games and asked why he should care about the Mavericks' playoff run. I didn't answer him, but I was still hoping that I was right about the team. They had all the pieces they needed to win...they just needed to form correctly.
The playoffs started, and there wasn't much excitement. We'd been here before, and the team needed to impress us. The fact that they were in a bit of a nightmare matchup against a hungry Portland team didn't help. Most people across the country were picking Portland in the "upset that's so popular, it shouldn't be an upset" pick.
But when I got tickets to go watch game one, I went. Because I desperately wanted to believe. And in the first game, they impressed me. I remember getting home from the game and telling Ashley and Tucker that the team looked good. That, if they can play like that, they can do some damage.
Then the Mavs won game two. And even though they lost game three, I still felt good.
Then game four happened. The blown lead. The collapse. The end.
It hurt. It stung. It killed. I wanted to permanently turn in my fan card. I actually started looking for new teams. I didn't think I could watch another game.
My only positive thought was that Tyson Chandler's mental toughness would lift the team that would've folded any other year. I watched game five with a sense of dread, but the Mavs went out and won. Then they won a tough road game in Portland, ending a terrible streak of road playoff losses.
But then they had to play the Lakers. Again, no one picked the Mavs. I went in with weak optimism because the Lakers were struggling coming into the playoffs and had some trouble with the Hornets.
The Lakers jumped out to a huge lead in game one. At halftime, Ashley and I watched Conan get his beard shaved off...hoping to laugh a bit before going to bed. But when that was over, we turned the game back on. Corey Brewer had come in, and the game was close. Ashley went to bed, and I stayed up and watched. And the Mavs somehow won game one. I was ecstatic, not knowing that it was going to be a regular thing in these playoffs.
Then the Mavs won game two. And game three. And blew the Lakers out of the water to win game four. A sweep of the mighty Lakers.
No one gave them credit, but it didn't matter. They were four wins away from the NBA Finals. The game four loss to Portland hadn't killed the Mavericks - it strengthened them. It taught them that no lead was safe - for either team - and that no game was won until the clock read all zeroes.
Then I went to game one against Oklahoma City. I didn't necessarily fear the Thunder, but I feared Kevin Durant taking a huge step in his career and doing something magical. But Dirk scored 48 that night, proving that he wasn't going to have any of that. OKC won game two, though, and the Mavericks had to win game three in Oklahoma to regain home court advantage.
Game four. Oklahoma City. I watched the game at the condo with Annie while Ashley went to the Rangers game. The three of us had watched many of the games together, and this was the first time that Ashley hadn't been there to watch with us. When the Thunder put together a huge lead, we started attacking Ashley on Twitter. We needed to take these games seriously. We were only six wins away from the championship, and we couldn't afford to lose to the stinkin' Thunder.
But then it happened. Just like with game four in the first round, one team refused to lose because they knew they still had a shot. Dirk went into Beast Mode, and the Mavericks attacked. They took it to overtime. They won.
Dallas leads 3-1. One win away from the NBA Finals.
And, like they'd done before...they smelled blood and took care of business, improving to 3-0 in killshot games. But then we looked over to the right and saw our future opponent. The damn Heat.
I already explained a lot about the Heat series (and this is already really long) so we'll cut to the chase. The Mavs lost game one...should've lost game two...and lost game three. It didn't look good. But then Dirk decided that, no matter what, he wasn't going to lose. He saw Caron Butler, still in street clothes. He saw Brendan Haywood go down with a hip injury. And he saw his own reflection in the mirror, suffering from a sinus infection and a 102 degree fever.
Terry was playing awful. Peja was non-existant. Barea was giving him nothing.
But he went into Beast Mode again and found a way to win game four. Then, in game five...the biggest game of all their careers, Dirk's friends finally showed up. And in game six, they carried Dirk to his first championship.
And what's funny is that, even though this team drove me crazy with their (sometimes way too) exciting play, I had a supernatural calm during game six. I thought they could win, but I'd been anxious all day that LeBron and Wade were going to do something extraordinary.
But from the tipoff to the end of the game, I wasn't worried. I wasn't anxious. I felt confident and happy and proud. This was destiny, and nothing was going to stop it.
And I'll be honest, I still don't think it's hit me. After weeks of watching Mavericks games on most days, it's strange to think that there's not another one around the corner. And it's been so long since this city has had a professional championship that I'm not really sure if I can comprehend it anymore.
Part of me was let down by the experience. It didn't rock my world in the way that I'd remembered the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowls. But, at the same time, it did feel like a weight had been lifted from me. My team had finally won something, and it was just a very cathartic feeling.
And maybe it was because I knew they had it in them. That I believed, even when many people did. My faith had been shaken, several times, over the season, but I stayed with them. I came back. I kept watching. And while it had been shaken, my faith was eventually rewarded.
I'm not the biggest basketball fan, but I love this city. I love it's teams. And I respect the Hell out of the Dallas Mavericks' organization. And I'm so proud that they're the 2010-2011 NBA Champions.
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