I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin so it’s only natural that almost half of my facebook social network resides in or is originally from Dallas. The celebration of these people and their countrymen is what I had dreaded. If you’re landing here from Google News or are just not from Texas, allow me to explain something: to say there is a rivalry between Houston and Dallas is an understatement. There has not been such hatred between supposed siblings since Cain and Abel. When discussion turns to the topic of basketball, after suffering derision for our team’s perpetual mediocrity, we Houston natives always had a trump card – our rings. That is now gone. That is what I had dreaded.
Watching the celebration unfold last night on my live feed (and isn’t that absolutely fascinating? The internet’s impact on human interaction and social dynamics has still not thoroughly been explored), I felt a sense of happiness for all of these friends but also curiosity. I’ve never experienced what they’re feeling. I’m 26. I was nine in ’94. In ’95, even though I had watched every game that season, I still didn’t truly appreciate the gravity of the moment. I took the titles for granted.
What must it be like being a Mavs fan, watching a team annually exit from the playoffs for over a decade, failure after failure, constantly re-tweaking the roster, seemingly in vain, against all conventional wisdom, then seeing them finally break through. What must it be like seeing one man, a foreigner, from the age of nineteen, choking on the biggest stage, and then experiencing ultimate redemption. They probably thought it would never happen. Most did not think it would ever happen for the Dallas Mavericks, at least not for this year’s version.
As I tweeted last night, I couldn’t help but think back through the road that team took to get to where they are today, an owner obsessively searching for a formula to the mockery of everyone. If you’re a die-hard Mavs fan, are you remembering those men that played a part in what gravitated to this moment?
What’s it like seeing Jason Kidd, the prodigal son, once the hope of the franchise, return and help lead the team to the promised land? What is Toni Braxton thinking after breaking up the Big 3? (If you’re not familiar, look up the story – the singer apparently had plans for a date with Kidd in ’94 and left the hotel with guard Jimmy Jackson instead.) Do Jimmy Jackson and Jamal Mashburn wonder what could have been had they learned to share the ball? Remember Sam Cassell’s brief stint with Big D? (The former Rocket was traded, along with Michael Finley, to Dallas for Jason Kidd.) What is Steve Nash thinking?
While my memory is a bit hazy, thinking back, it’s been one hell of a road, the metamorphosis of this Dallas franchise. They obviously started with Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn, transitioning their way to Nash, Finley, and Dirk. But ironically, the move that got the ball rolling was the Juwan Howard trade, with Mark Cuban’s willingness to take on the All-Star forward’s ridiculous contract. That was the trade that set the wheels in motion for Dallas because from that point onward, they consistently had the assets to make deals; a willingness to spend means little without actual assets. Trading what was essentially garbage for Howard set off a domino effect of trades that kept the pipeline stocked over the next decade, leading to where we are today. The Howard trade spawned Nick Van Excel, Raef Lafrentz, Antawn Jamison, Antoine Walker, and Jason Terry, through a timeline of maligned maneuvers, ensuring Dallas’ competitiveness throughout this decade. It took some time, but they got there.
