It's an interesting one, because I was a little kid in the '80s and went to high school in the '90s. That timeline also means I was a Michael Jordan kid. I was obsessed with Air Jordan like so many others around my age were back then. Every single kid in America at that time wanted to wear the famous 23 when playing basketball.
I wasn’t even 10 years old yet when the Mavs of the late '80s were good. I remember the names and watched them with my Dad because I played youth basketball; despite those teams peaking with a run to Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals in 1988, none of the Mavericks then were Michael Jordan. I wasn't really a Chicago Bulls fan. I was a Michael Jordan fan, but just as the Bulls were becoming very good in the late '80s, the Mavericks were starting to suck. Badly.
And I do mean suck. The Mavericks of the 1990s were pure trash while Jordan and the Bulls were winning title after title. Even living in Dallas and going to Mavs games, if you were an early '90s kid, you were probably a Bulls fan. The Gatorade commercials were correct — I wanted to "be like Mike." By then, I was a teenager, and admittedly, I was stoked when the Cavs drafted Jim Jackson in ’92 and Jamal “Monster” Mashburn in ’93 and topped those picks off with Jason Kidd in the ’94 draft. And yet, the Mavericks, somehow, still very much sucked.
Add that to being a Rangers fan back then, and most of us just accepted that our teams were never going to win anything or be relevant. The Cowboys were dominant through much of the '90s, winning three Super Bowls in four years, so that certainly helped soothe the pain the other teams inflicted upon us.
A New Era
But with a new millennium came a new Mavericks era. Young ballers such as Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Michael Finley started making things happen. That was a fun time, but they couldn’t get past the rival San Antonio Spurs, who were actually winning titles. Steve Nash and Michael Finley left the team in free agency, but then 2006 happened. Against the predictions of many, the Mavericks went to the NBA Finals. It seemed as though we had finally arrived at the gates of Valhalla and Dirk was set to ascend to the top of the NBA mountain, showing the world that Dallas was a legitimate NBA franchise.Of course, none of us around here at the time realized that the NBA seemed to want the Miami Heat's Dwayne Wade to be the league's face and decided to gift him a title. Look at the tape, then try to tell me I'm wrong. In all honesty, after the events of the 2006 Finals, I struggled to care as much as I had previously. The high number of free throws Wade was granted was so far out of whack, it killed something about my love of professional basketball that took a few years to get back.
Fast forward to the 2010–11 season, and my indifference had been assuaged. The magical run the Mavs went on through the playoffs that season was as improbable as perhaps any run ever. They took down the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers in a sweep before defeating the young, but loaded, Oklahoma City Thunder team with Kevin Durant, James Harden and Russell Westbrook. In that stellar Finals series, Dirk, Jason Terry and the Mavs triumphed over the Miami Heat "super team" of Lebron James and Dwayne Wade in a thrilling six games that cemented Dirk's status as an absolute living legend.
But, if we're all being honest, it seemed, given the age of some of those guys, that team represented a sort of "one and done" scenario and not a likely dynasty. In a twist perhaps many didn't see coming, that isn't how we should feel about the team playing in the American Airlines Center now.
Luka Magic
Unless you’re some basketball savant, you most likely never saw much of Luka Doncic until the summer of 2018. As the draft approached and the Mavs got screwed again in the NBA lottery, settling for the fifth pick, I went on YouTube and started watching highlights of this guy and became obsessed. His vision and his swagger were extremely evident in the clips of Luka playing for Real Madrid in Spain. Thanks to some draft night manuvering by the Mavs, we ended up with that guy. He's been that guy and so much more for his six NBA seasons.To be fair, Luka is an asshole. Luka is also a cold-blooded assassin. Luka wants to tell you that he’s going to hit a 3-pointer in your face and then do it and then scream profanities at you right before he turns to your crowd and screams profanities at them, before going full-on Gladiator after he cuts your head off and asks your fans, “Are you not entertained?!” And for good villain measure, he'll flip double birds to everyone while maniacally smiling because he knows you can’t do anything about it.
But he's our villain, our assassin.
The accolades continue to pile up for the dude who just became the first Mav to lead the league in scoring and is an All-NBA First Team selection for the fifth consecutive season. It became evident very early in his career that the Mavs have someone that you expect to win a league MVP award. It's been nearly impossible to not expect he will win a championship at some point in his career. In him, we have someone with an innate ability to process 18,000 people screaming profanities at him, absorb it and turn it into a 20-point quarter in a closeout game of a Western Conference Final.
He’s played 45 career playoff games and averaged 31.1 points per game, second all-time in playoff scoring behind that guy named Michael Jordan. Oh, and Jordan didn’t reach an NBA Finals until his 7th season, when he was 27 years old.
Dallas made a mammoth trade just over a year ago to supply Luka with his own future Hall of Fame running mate who happens to have championship experience — Kyrie Irving. The Mavericks then tanked at the end of the season last year so that they would keep their enviable draft position. It worked.
The Mavs ended up with Derrick Lively II. And what a rookie sensation and impact player he has been. If you didn’t think Mavs GM Nico Harrison was a genius by this point, then at the trade deadline this season, the team acquired PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, both of whom have been key pieces during this playoff run. Since then, with the starting lineup of Doncic, Irving, Derrick Jones Jr., Gafford and Washington, the Mavericks are 27-6, including the playoffs.
To be fair, Luka is an asshole. Luka is also a cold-blooded assassin.
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Dallas will now attempt to take down the best team in the NBA over the course of the regular season, a Boston Celtics squad that won 64 games and, including the playoffs, is 76-20 overall. They were the league's top offensive team and the second-best defensive team in the regular season.
If you’re a Mavs fan, enjoy this. The NBA Western Conference is as difficult as it gets, and while the bulk of this Mavericks team is under contract for next season as Luka only continues to get better, the Western Conference is indeed a gauntlet to get through. The Mavericks have been a franchise since 1980, but this is just their third appearance on the biggest NBA stage.
You never know when it will happen again, so enjoy the hell out of it. Yell at the TV, celebrate each moment of positivity and let the full spectrum of emotion overcome you for the next couple of weeks. After all, we haven’t experienced this for 13 years.
Is another improbable title run on the way for the Mavericks? Perhaps it is. I want to believe it is, and I'm sure as hell not going to bet against Luka. The last thing any Celtics fan should want to do is piss off a guy who thrives on adversity and seemingly embraces the villain role, but they will anyway because they can’t help themselves.
Think about John Wick, Gray Man, Jason Bourne and Robert McCall. These fictional assassins seem to have one thing in common: no matter what you do, you’re usually helpless against them. They just keep coming and they refuse to die.
Fortunately for us, our assassin is real and wears number 77. Go Mavs!
