Shame On You
By Mike Fisher -- DB.com
I’ve been made sick to my stomach twice this month. The Mavs were responsible for the first one. The second time, it is you who makes me ill. You, who thirsts for a bloodbath. You, who demands a firing. You, with your “blow-it-up’’ ugliness. You make me sick.
Three decades is how long it’s taken this traditionally woeful franchise to march to the point where perennial 60-win seasons and championship contention wrapped in a fan-friendly package is somehow unacceptable. It’s been people like Donnie and Avery and Cuban and Dirk who’ve guided us there. And now you demand they be drawn-and-quartered.
Shame on you.
I mean, shame on the Mavs, too. They lost. In the first round. In an embarrassingly unprecedented manner. I am disappointed. Why did they lose? You say it’s because they lack “heart’’ or “guts’’ or “Dirk sucks’’ or “management screwed up’’ or “Avery should be canned’’ or. …
Maybe, as Devin Harris put it, “We choked.’’ It could be that simple, you know. Or maybe they just got beat. “That’s basketball,’’ said Jason Terry.
The finest facilities, the best of everything, competitive leaders like Avery and Cuban and Donnie and Dirk, players who seem to enjoy interact with each other and the fans, no nightly police-blotter issues, team-wide unselfishness and chemistry, the best seasons this franchise has ever had. … hell, in the last three or four years pretty much the best seasons about any NBA franchise has had. …
And they got beat. And therefore, somebody must pay. Is that it?
Suddenly, the Morning News’ Jean-Jacques Taylor pens a column on Nowitzki, as mindless as it is mean, assuring that the Mavs will never win a title with Dirk as their leader. The next day, JJT wrote that Avery is “not an elite coach.’’ I’m assuming that he’s going right down the row, yelping that everything about the Mavs sucks, so within 30 days or so should be the “Mavs Will Never Win With Humble Billy Hayes As The PA Announcer’’ column.
Meanwhile, Donnie should “be replaced.’’ And Cuban should “sell the team.’’ Or at least hush, says Randy Galloway: “Shut the bleep up!’’ is Randy’s high-browed contribution to the discourse. There are media people in this town who haven’t attended 20 games in the last three years who have become instant experts on what is right and wrong about the Mavericks. … and of course, what they find is mostly wrong. And somehow, what you find is mostly wrong.
So we should “blow it up.’’
Shame on you.
Unless you are, like, a 10-year-old, lacking maturity and a knowledge of the Mavs’ woeful history, shame on you.
Somebody at the Morning News said we should dump Donnie for “a GM like Chicago’s Scott Skiles.’’ Nevermind that Skiles ISN’T EVEN CHICAGO’S GM. You still want to do. … something!
The assclown media guy in Chicago, Sam Smith, states as fact “The general sentiment in Dallas is (Dirk) has to go.’’
Maybe what we should “do’’ is spit-can Dirk. For the first time, Sam Smith is close to being right about something Mavs-related, because that does seem to be a popular refrain.
Yahoo.com's Dan Wetzel: He says Dirk “didn't even go down fighting; he just gave up.’’ The suggestion here is echoed, even more strongly, by SI.com's Chris Ballard: He says “a Warriors coach told me the staff thought Nowitzki was scared of Jackson.’’ Bill Simmons of ESPN went foolishly over the ledge with this theme, wondering why Dirk never “trash-talked’’ back to Jackson.
Is that the Dirk you know? This Round 1 debacle aside, the kid who came to Dallas, built his game piece-by-piece, became a rebounder, became a leader, became a man, became an MVP finalist three years running, and this year, experienced the most glorious single season a Mav has ever had. … he’s a guy who “gives up’’? He’s a “wuss’’? And it would all be solved if only he’d yelp “Yo’ Momma!’’ at an opponent? Or if we’d ship his sorry pink ass to Atlanta?
The Dirk I know is the one who signs every single autograph for a group of 100 people waiting for the finish of a training-camp workout in Denton. The Dirk I know is the one who was supposed to get “Punk’d’’ on MTV but flopped on the show because he didn’t act angry enough while on hidden camera. The Dirk I know works at befriending everybody on this team, everybody in this organization, secretaries and Jason Terry and Erick Dampier and ‘Gana Diop and JJ Barea. … they all consider him a friend.
He plays hurt. He plays unselfishly. He plays brilliantly. Your kids can idolize him. As far as I know, he’s been able to keep his strip-club-parking-lot-shootings out of the news.
And now you’re demanding that Dirk be more like Stephen Jackson? And that, like TrueHoop's Henry Abbott: Dirk should give back “that little (MVP) trophy’’ and “should be traded.’’
Shame on you.
DB.com will handle the logistics of an actual “blowing up’’ of this team in the coming days. We will play with ideas even though Cuban has already told us, “We’ll always try to get better. We’ll always optimize. But you don’t get better by making wholesale changes every year. We’re not blowing things up.’’
Still, there are ways to do it. But be careful what you wish for here. Is there really a bundle of superstars for whom you would trade for Nowitzki? (Who do you prefer to count on, to root for, and to get your guaranteed championships with? Kobe? Garnett? Vince? T-Mac?) Is there really a bunch of coaches you’d trade for Avery? Apply the same question to Cuban, to Donnie. You sure you’re gonna pluck better MVP candidates, coaches and execs off any ol’ tree branch?
You have the right. I recognize that. It’s your money invested, or your emotion invested, or your time invested. So if you want to now invest in spitting venom, you get to. Even if you want to instead invest in fandom of the Rangers, or the Hornets, or the Lakers, go ahead. Even if you won’t miss them, the Mavericks will miss you. Seriously.
Maybe you should be a fan of the Clippers. Or the Kansas City Royals. Or the Detroit Lions. Unless the Mavs, those organizations seem unwilling to take the risks of chasing greatness. Finish 41-41 and nobody laughs. Dare to be great, and the Mavs are now a punchline on Conan? I can live with that.
Or, if you want to hang around while allowing your spoiled self to stew, growing more angry over losses than you allow yourself to be happy about wins, do so.
But I’m staying put. I’ll leave the bandwagon-jumping to all the people around here who pretend they went to UT, to all the Snoop Doggs and the Owen Wilsons. (Why did Wilson open his new movie in Dallas and not in Oakland?) Vacate your seat. It leaves more room for me to put my feet up, you know.
I don’t mind being labeled a “homer’’ here. I don’t mind being labeled a Polyanna. But kids, I gotta tell you: I’ve been a Mavs fan for 17 years. As of about two weeks ago, I was at my ecstatic peak, delighted about every single aspect of this franchise, from the chemistry to JET’s enthusiasm to the logo to the 67 to the Dancers to Dirk’s MVP year to the building to the emergence of J-Ho to their chance to win our first title to the bonding opportunity given me with my sons to the AAC nachos to the fans’ devotion to. … everything. And I know you felt the same way. I KNOW you did.
And two weeks and four losses later – four admittedly devastating losses later – now we’re supposed to all distrust Avery and dislike Donnie and wish Dirk would go back to Germany and “will (as I’ve read on many discussion boards, including my own) never root for the Mavs again’’? They were about “guts’’ and “heart’’ and “talent’’ and “fun’’ two weeks ago, but now you spew the opinion that none of it was worth savoring and none of it is worth saving?
You make me sick. Shame on you.