I was reminiscing about the Championship the other night with the people we were at the game with. I don't know if there could have been a sweeter championship win. I always loved the aspect that a group of guys played as a true team and beat a group of all stars that were *cough cough* trying to take the quick route to success. The Mavs weren't supposed to win, but they did. They earned it. And Dirk was an inspiration, a leader, and an MVP.

I was fortunate enough to attend Game 6 of that series in Miami. Actually, there was no way that I was going to miss it. I didn't buy a flight home because I didn't know if I'd come back the day after 6 or if I'd be hanging out til after Game 7. I was staying in Miami until we either won it or lost it...let me just say my wallet was glad it ended in 6! On the way home, I picked up a newspaper at the airport. I promptly passed out on the plane (long night) and didn't realize it until I got home but this ad was mistakenly run!


Here are a few pics from that series that weren't mine that brought back laughs.



I didn't take too many pics at that game but here is my forehead in front of the blurry trophy presentation. (Edited to exclude me and my buddy, which was what the original pic was focused on).


And I edited myself out of this pic of me holding some championship belt that the team was passing around on the stage after the game.


I want to frame this ticket stub with some signed Dirk stuff but I can't find it anymore. I suck!


And finally, and just because I'm reminiscing here, I always loved drunk Nash/Dirk (not my pic but was widely circulated). We used to see them at the Loon all the time back in 2001 or so.

BSD said:

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And finally, and just because I'm reminiscing here, I always loved drunk Nash/Dirk (not my pic but was widely circulated). We used to see them at the Loon all the time back in 2001 or so.

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This was at Woody's Tavern in Fort Worth. I was there that night. Django Walker was playing and they walked in the side door by the stage with Nash on Dirks shoulders, both had a longneck bottle in each hand. The band stopped. They stayed the whole night hanging out with everyone, taking shots with people, playing foosball. At one point Dirk was on stage playing Django's guitar. It was a ****ing epic night.

jeffdjohnson said:

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Final thought is that the Mavs have a 6% chance at the number 1 pick. That is always a valuable pick but this year it has particular importance for the Mavs. It is hard to win a championship, there are 30 teams vying for this thing after all. But the Mavs have a 1 in 16 chance to pair Luka/Zion/Porzingis together for the next 10 years. That isn't just worth one championship. That is a dynasty. I'm not suggesting to hold your breath on that one, but it is in play.

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The scenario that gets me excited is the Mavs win the lottery and work out a trade with the Pelicans for Davis with him signing an extension.

And in case anyone is confused, drawing the tiebreaker for 9th does not mean that they have the 9th best odds of drawing the Top 4 or #1 overall pick. Memphis, New Orleans, and Dallas all have a 26.3% chance of Top 4 and 6% chance of #1.

True Anomaly said:

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I'm glad we got 9th. If we lose the lottery, The lower pick we give Atlanta the better. Doesn't affect us.

#1 most realistic free agent we go after?

Besides Powell, Brunson, KP and Luka, who are locks to make the roster or come back?

JJ and Devin as back-up point guards?

Lots of holes to fill this summer.

awinlonghorn said:

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#1 most realistic free agent we go after?

Besides Powell, Brunson, KP and Luka, who are locks to make the roster or come back?

JJ and Devin as back-up point guards?

Lots of holes to fill this summer.

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Devin is probably gone. He was a 1 yr filler.

I think we will target/realistically pursue Vuc, Kemba, Brogdon, Ed Davis, and Thomas Bryant. Those 5 names are realistic options that fill team needs.

awinlonghorn said:

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#1 most realistic free agent we go after?

Besides Powell, Brunson, KP and Luka, who are locks to make the roster or come back?

JJ and Devin as back-up point guards?

Lots of holes to fill this summer.

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I hope I'm not the only one sick and tired of Barea / Harris.

They both play the same position and collectively fail to play 82 games between them. It's like 2 guys giving the production of one player, but they take up 2 spots on the roster.

They need to bring back trey Burke to play on the second team.

CastleRock said:

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I'm pretty pissed that we went from 5th to 9th. I hope those 4 extra wins were worth it.

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The drawing was inconsequential. The Mavericks will receive the same number of lottery balls as the teams slotted at 7th and 8th.

CastleRock said:

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I'm pretty pissed that we went from 5th to 9th. I hope those 4 extra wins were worth it.

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The Mavs could have finished tied for 6th, they never actually had a shot at 5th. They really only tried to tank two games this year, both against Memphis, and ended up splitting 1-1. That extra win moved them from 33% to 26% on their chances for a top 4 pick. And 7.5% to 6% on their chance for Zion. I wouldn't sweat it too much, they are unlikely (but possible) to move up either way.

I do think the Mavs will go after Kemba with a max. This only works if Luka is the primary ball handler with Kemba agreeing to be a secondary playmaker/scorer when they are both on the court. Another huge benefit to Kemba is that you can stagger their minutes and always be attacking with either Luka or Kemba the entire game. If he does agree to that then Kemba/Luka/Porzingis would be a deadly offensive trio. The other two starters with them would need to be defensive minded players though.

I'm not sure who those players would be or if they are on the roster. Also the Mavs wouldn't have a lot of additional cap space left if they give it all to Kemba. So I wouldn't be surprised if they try to stretch waive Courtney Lee to free up a bit more cash if they need it for a defensive stopper. I think a potential starting unit of Kemba/1 through 3 defender/Luka/3 through 5 defender/Porzingis and bench of Brunson/Hardaway Jr./Finney-Smith/Kleber/Powell would be pretty damn good team.

I don't see Kemba going anywhere he isn't going to be the #1 option.

6th place is a 37.2% chance. Had they lost to Golden State, Oklahoma, and Philly like you'd expect they would have had a clear 37.2% chance to keep their pick. If they did all that and lost to Memphis on the road like you'd expect, then you're talking a top 5 slotting with a 45% chance of keeping their pick (split with Atlanta).

My deal is if the pick isn't top 3 then it's whatever. I don't think there are many guys outside the top 3 that are worth getting bent out of shape over not having. That's a drop from a 27.6% chance at top 3 to ~19% chance at top 3. 9% at the top pick to 6%. Basically cut our chances by a third. Not that big of a deal.

hph6203 said:

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6th place is a 37.2% chance. Had they lost to Golden State, Oklahoma, and Philly like you'd expect they would have had a clear 37.2% chance to keep their pick. If they did all that and lost to Memphis on the road like you'd expect, then you're talking a top 5 slotting with a 45% chance of keeping their pick (split with Atlanta).

My deal is if the pick isn't top 3 then it's whatever. I don't think there are many guys outside the top 3 that are worth getting bent out of shape over not having. That's a drop from a 27.6% chance at top 3 to ~19% chance at top 3. 9% at the top pick to 6%. Basically cut our chances by a third. Not that big of a deal.

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This draft is extremely weak.

My thinking has always been Zion or bust. Who else is worth getting out of this draft?

I don't think RJ Barrett or Ja Morant are franchise changing players, but they're worthy of a pick in the top part of most drafts. After that no one stands out. If the Mavs got the #1 pick I'd go Zion (obviously), but with 2 or 3 I'd go Barrett. Other than Zion no one is worth crying over not getting and you're out from under your obligation to the Hawks. Barrett is more a wouldn't be a terrible pick player.

The problem the Mavs have right now is they're staring down being a pretty decent, fringe playoff team, with only cap space to improve, which leaves you with the risk of overpaying players or having a mismatched aged roster. In other words by the time the younger guys improve enough to be the driving force behind a championship run, the older guys have aged out of a lot of their utility. Luka is like 4-5 years away from starting his prime, Porzingis is 3-4, it's be nice if we could add some role/specialist players around them in the same age range and the best way to do that is through the draft.

If Barrett could be a fringe all-star he's worth of that pick to me, but the rest don't strike me as immediately viable. Still, I don't see this draft like last year's draft where there were 4-5 guys that would easily take the #1-2 picks in this draft. Not sure you could pass up Zion's marketability. Luka to me is the only player in that draft that could even remotely compete with his attention grabbing play.

hph6203 said:

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I don't think RJ Barrett or Ja Morant are franchise changing players, but they're worthy of a pick in the top part of most drafts. After that no one stands out. If the Mavs got the #1 pick I'd go Zion (obviously), but with 2 or 3 I'd go Barrett. Other than Zion no one is worth crying over not getting and you're out from under your obligation to the Hawks. Barrett is more a wouldn't be a terrible pick player.

The problem the Mavs have right now is they're staring down being a pretty decent, fringe playoff team, with only cap space to improve, which leaves you with the risk of overpaying players or having a mismatched aged roster. In other words by the time the younger guys improve enough to be the driving force behind a championship run, the older guys have aged out of a lot of their utility. Luka is like 4-5 years away from starting his prime, Porzingis is 3-4, it's be nice if we could add some role/specialist players around them in the same age range and the best way to do that is through the draft.

If Barrett could be a fringe all-star he's worth of that pick to me, but the rest don't strike me as immediately viable. Still, I don't see this draft like last year's draft where there were 4-5 guys that would easily take the #1-2 picks in this draft. Not sure you could pass up Zion's marketability. Luka to me is the only player in that draft that could even remotely compete with his attention grabbing play.

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You might be over estimating the time from on Luka and Porzingis.
For me, I'd take Zion and trade the pick otherwise, but I know not everyone feels that way.

PatAg said:

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hph6203 said:

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I don't think RJ Barrett or Ja Morant are franchise changing players, but they're worthy of a pick in the top part of most drafts. After that no one stands out. If the Mavs got the #1 pick I'd go Zion (obviously), but with 2 or 3 I'd go Barrett. Other than Zion no one is worth crying over not getting and you're out from under your obligation to the Hawks. Barrett is more a wouldn't be a terrible pick player.

The problem the Mavs have right now is they're staring down being a pretty decent, fringe playoff team, with only cap space to improve, which leaves you with the risk of overpaying players or having a mismatched aged roster. In other words by the time the younger guys improve enough to be the driving force behind a championship run, the older guys have aged out of a lot of their utility. Luka is like 4-5 years away from starting his prime, Porzingis is 3-4, it's be nice if we could add some role/specialist players around them in the same age range and the best way to do that is through the draft.

If Barrett could be a fringe all-star he's worth of that pick to me, but the rest don't strike me as immediately viable. Still, I don't see this draft like last year's draft where there were 4-5 guys that would easily take the #1-2 picks in this draft. Not sure you could pass up Zion's marketability. Luka to me is the only player in that draft that could even remotely compete with his attention grabbing play.

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You might be over estimating the time from on Luka and Porzingis.
For me, I'd take Zion and trade the pick otherwise, but I know not everyone feels that way.

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Probably what I would do too. I heard chatter about the culver kid from Texas tech being a possible top 5 pick. I wasn't impressed with him tho.

i think this age of one and done makes it really hard to evaluate good to very good future pro players. Zion is likely a franchise type player, but i can't even remember the top ten from the last two drafts. I can list the top ten from 95 to 2005 pretty easily.

awinlonghorn said:

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i think this age of one and done makes it really hard to evaluate good to very good future pro players. Zion is likely a franchise type player, but i can't even remember the top ten from the last two drafts. I can list the top ten from 95 to 2005 pretty easily.

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That's an excellent point.

An NBA player's prime is typically around 26ish give or take a year, at least the beginning of it, and the decline typically starts around 32. The other side of that coin is that the stars in the league today, save a couple, are going to be on the decline. Embiid, Giannis and Davis will be the Mavs primary competition for a title in 3-4 years, right now that list is about 2-3x as long. They'll compete earlier, but I think 3-4 years will be where you go into a season with the expectation that they're going to be vying for the #1 seed.

If you want a good laugh, go watch the highlight of Harden's last shot. Specifically, watch his legs on the follow through, and tell me how he would have stayed on his feet if he didn't make contact with the defender. Clear attempt to flop and draw a foul not called

hph6203 said:

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An NBA player's prime is typically around 26ish give or take a year, at least the beginning of it, and the decline typically starts around 32. The other side of that coin is that the stars in the league today, save a couple, are going to be on the decline. Embiid, Giannis and Davis will be the Mavs primary competition for a title in 3-4 years, right now that list is about 2-3x as long. They'll compete earlier, but I think 3-4 years will be where you go into a season with the expectation that they're going to be vying for the #1 seed.

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That's with the traditional "go to college and then go to NBA" route,imo.

PatAg said:

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If you want a good laugh, go watch the highlight of Harden's last shot. Specifically, watch his legs on the follow through, and tell me how he would have stayed on his feet if he didn't make contact with the defender. Clear attempt to flop and draw a foul not called

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He does this on almost every shot. I was glad to see the no-calls (although one in particular was an obvious foul). I was also happy to see technical fouls finally being called. I'm tired of watching every player complain about every single call or no-call.

Someone on Twitter made the clip

Luka isn't as egregious as Harden, but let's face it - Luka is gonna be our Harden. A player that other teams hate playing against

The harden jack-knife

There's a good chance that he would have been legitimately fouled if he had simply landed naturally without trying to draw/oversell the contact.

Not a foul and it's ridiculous that Cuban popped off on twitter about that play. He's gonna catch a fine for complaining about officiating in a game that doesn't involve the Mavs. LOL

Seven Costanza said:

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PatAg said:

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If you want a good laugh, go watch the highlight of Harden's last shot. Specifically, watch his legs on the follow through, and tell me how he would have stayed on his feet if he didn't make contact with the defender. Clear attempt to flop and draw a foul not called

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He does this on almost every shot. I was glad to see the no-calls (although one in particular was an obvious foul). I was also happy to see technical fouls finally being called. I'm tired of watching every player complain about every single call or no-call.

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I love Luka but man he does this a lot.

I don't care who is doing it. It's annoying either way.

Pat Beverly to the Mavs?

Bring me Pat Beverly. If he's gonna be the biggest pest in the league, I want him to be our pest