FanPost

Your Dallas Maverick Fandom: Are You a Jedi or a Sith?

It’s time to choose sides. Enough generalizations. Enough overreaction. Enough under appreciation. No more succumbing to the media Deathstar and its loyal horde. Choose, and choose wisely. Time for some of you to recognize what we have in the Dallas Mavericks. (The following also applies to other NBA fans who have had a rowdy good time questioning our FO moves since we won the NBA Championship).

Let us go ahead and start with Dirk. Dirk epitomizes my view of our team, and every team, even the Rebel Alliance, had its own Luke Skywalker; the one guy with super crazy Jedi skills.

Dirk is a top 5 talent in the league, period. End of story. Please do not try to debate it, he is that good. An inch over a year ago he and his band of rebels ran through the ballyhooed and soulless Superteams in the form of the Heat, Lakers, and Thunder, with an impressive 12-3 record against said teams during that run. Media pundits and non-Mavs fans alike were flabbergasted at the results of the ’11 ‘ship, they collectively pondered, how in the hell did the Mavs do this? They still don’t get it, and they seem to have all but forgotten it completely, exchanging it for the sexier Heat this past year. Now they turn their attention towards the meteoric acquisitions made by the Lakers, Nets, and Knicks this year.

Let me ask you something, how many rings do the Big Three of the Celtics have? Same as us. How about Miami’s Big Three? Same as us. How many do you think New York’s beloved squads are going to win with their new Gazzillion dollar rosters? Maybe one between the two teams within the next 4 years? Because 4 years is undoubtedly how small of a window they have being constructed as they stand.

Which brings me to my point regarding the Lakers and their geriatric backcourt; they have roughly a 3-year window at best to win maybe one ring. They will not win more than that given Bynum is a headache and likely on the way out, Gasol is older and still pissed at the FO for jerking him around… i.e./final conclusion/the synopsis: the Lakers really won’t have a frontcourt to go with their Golden Girls backcourt sooner rather than later.

And for fun lets say they stick it to me and do acquire Howard, well, they can have him, he’s a Sith; hell, he is taking over Lebron’s mantle as Vader. Sounds like bad logic, I know, but that’s the moral of this story dammit, keep reading.

Dirk is not only unlike every other NBA-er skillset-wise, he is also completely unlike every other star in the league in that he is here, in the league, for all the right reasons.

Just look at the infamous Bloomberg report last year. Again, we have reporters in the media looking absolutely confused and befuddled by this Maverick’s actions or non-action in this instance, as to why Dirk has never had an agent or business manager or endorsement deal outside of his shoe deal with Nike. And I quote the Chosen One verbatim in an email he sent to Bloomberg in response to their inquisition "I always wanted to be a basketball player. Nothing more. Nothing less. I have never really considered myself to be a ‘brand.’ "

Whoa! What?! What did a NBA player just say? A NBA player that just won the championship? A NBA player whose team just beat Kobe’s team, Lebron’s team, Durant’s team? Are there pigs flying outside my window today? Check the weather on your iPhone man, has hell frozen over?

Seriously, Dirk, with his Jedi Mind Tricks, his Yoda (Carlisle), and his rebel crew of misfits dominated the Darkside in the ‘11 playoffs to achieve something we rarely get to see in pro hoops these days; a successful rebellion against the status quo. And the status quo is evil, it is Sith-like. Did you see the look on David Stern’s, hum, the Emperor’s face when he had to hand over the trophy to Cubes, his face said "I cannot believe this shit is happening, WTF?!!!!! Code red, code freaking red!!!!!"

Now, on to the detractors, namely Chandler, Kidd, and Terry. I go against almost every fan and pundit in saying this, but I could honestly care less: Chandler and Co. left us, the FO did not push them out. You have to see it that way because it IS that way.

Let’s start with Chandler, who very recently said, "I feel sorry for Dirk." Even though you are a huge man-beast and can absolutely crush me, Tyson Chandler, you sir can take your apology and stuff it up your skinny Sith ass. Jedi do not need your pity. Chandler acts as if we didn’t want him here, we offered him $20M reasons to play on a 1 yr. contract here; hello, 4 year max deals like B. Lopez’s this year for example is at $60m, that’s $15M a year. Basically we offered more money than a max player could get so that he could defend the championship with his good buddy Dirk whose feelings he cares so much about.

But what did Chandler do instead? He went to New York, the biggest media market in the Milky Way Galaxy, so he could play with other Sith-esque talents in Carmelo and Stoudemire. To make matters worse, he went to play for an offensive-minded highlight reel producing coach in Mike D (who didn’t even last the season and who has never won a championship). This past year, Chandler has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel, in ESPN Mag "The Body Issue" [gag], in Untied Airlines’ In-Flight Magazine ‘Hemispheres’, in really bad rap videos, etc. etc.

Let us be honest with ourselves here, at the end of the day, Tyson was never signing here. He’s like a dumb alligator on ‘Swamp People’ and the chicken with highly questionable ‘gravy’ poured all over it is the New York Knicks. They got celebrity fans, the Big Apple, they got the whole nine, they are all that jazz, they are the cat’s pajamas, you dig? Are you following me now?

Also, another thing that happens at the ‘end of the day,’ unrestricted free agents ultimately control where they play!!!!!!! (Hey, that last sentence rhymed). That’s what unrestricted means! I cannot reinforce this notion enough times. Luke could have joined his father Vader and they would have freaking dominated every inch of matter in space had that gone down, but it didn’t. Luke ultimately had the decision to make for himself and he freaking made it dammit, it was that simple.

All this so Chandler can avg. 11 and 9 for the Knicks this past year with avg. of 1.4 blocks a game, (even Kaman avg. more than that last year with 1.6 blks per game), and our points against avg. as a team actually improved without Chandler this past season. DEF POY is all media hype in my mind because of this small miracle. Marion a.k.a. Lando Calrissian was mostly responsible for this not-so-small feat and he placed 8th in DEF POY voting this year. Rest my case on that one.

Oh, and tell me again how Chandler’s "Superteam" fared in this past year’s playoffs? Lost 4-1 in the first round to the team that Dirk and co. beat in the Finals the year prior, you know, the same Dirk that Tyson feels so bad for. Again, Tyson, you left us, and the one person you should be feeling sorry for is yourself. You are a Sith. And damn ESPN for giving the ‘Chandler feels bad for Dirk’ story so much play. ESPN is the mother f-ing Deathstar that houses all these misguided imperialists.

Kidd, well, really not much to say about him, just read above regarding Chandler going to New York. J-Kidd wants to be seen in the Hamptons and hang with his Sith brethren D. Will and Melo and all the other superstars with cute little nicknames. Dirk doesn’t do nicknames. He is Dirk. Nothing more. Nothing less. Remember his Bloomberg quote referenced above?

Besides, the ancient Kidd will probably avg. 20 mins a game for the rest of his career, and given his numbers last season, 6.2 and 5.5 with 35% 3pt %, we have upgraded that position astronomically with Collison. At the very least, Collisson can make a freaking layup for crying out loud, even better yet, he will be seen dunking on people a lot this season, you can count on it.

Then there is the Jet, geez, another "look at me" nickname, I should have known all along. I’ll admit, I had a love/hate relationship with Terry. Loved his killer 3pt shooting, oh, except for every playoffs outside of 2011, I give him that, he earned it. But I absolutely hated his invisible defense, his self-promoting takeoff move after every single made shot, and I especially felt like his CTC (Cut the Check) inscription on his game shoes for all last season drove it home for me; the dude was a Sith.

So where does Terry go off to? Not Cleveland, not Portland, not some small market no-name team, he goes off to the original Superteam of the modern-era, the Bahston Celtics.

What’s the point of all this you say? The Mavs are Jedis. They are the Rebel Alliance. And while that may not be very popular, we at least stand for something.

I like that we are the underdogs. I like that none of these super free agents have yet to choose to play here because it’s not flashy enough for’em, or a big enough media market, or lacking enough superstars to team with (as was the case with D-Will when he said that Joe Johnson of all players sealed the deal for him to play with the Nets over the Mavs this season). I don’t want us to be the New York Yankees of basketball.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have some big time players in here to team with Dirk, but only if they want to be here, only if they get what it is the Mavericks are about. I don’t want a team consisting of Dirk and a bunch of robotic Stormtroopers grasping for every bit of individual shine they can get. I want players of the Jedi ilk.

Look, I’ve been known to be a space cadet, I mean my screen name says it all, but I am not delusional. It would have been great if Deron would have wanted to come here, come home, and learn from Skywalker (Dirk). The dude is a stud top PG in the league. Hans Solo was a badass pilot, no doubt, but he had a smuggler’s heart. Luke, as we all know, changed all that when they teamed up. Luke helped him realize his full potential, I mean, he helped the guy realize his destiny, and whose to say that doesn’t translate to hoops?

Albeit, now that I know why D-Will chose the Nets (Joe Johnson, as D-Will so matter-of-factly said so himself), I simply do not want another lifeless Sith looking for the easy out, looking to construct what they deem a Superteam. I’d rather keep my Rebel Alliance intact thank you very much.

2011 was great because everybody was on board. Everybody toed the line that Dirk was reeling out. They played within themselves, within their abilities, without being blinded by the gaze that is Laker gold shimmer. Without being hung up in the mist of the media planet that was the Miami Heat. Even Cuban took a cue from Dirk and simply let his team do the talking.

So, let us now look to the future and consider this:

The 15th man on any NBA team is a straight-up baller, it’s not like these guys are scrubs. To be part of the best league in the world, you have to be one of the top 450 players in the world; by the way, there are over 7 billion people on planet Earth. Sooooo, when you have Dirk, a Top-5 Baller-Jedi-to-the-Max with a one-of-a-kind skillset, you can basically put 14 NBA players around him and we have a chance at winning it all.

But Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi (Cuban and Donnie) aren't just putting NBA players around Skywalker this year, are they? We got much better at starting PG, we got the best offensive center we've ever had in Kaman, we got Dahntay Jones who fulfills the exact same role D-Shawn did although better (because Da Jones is built like a brick s*%# house at 6' 6" & shot 42% from 3pt last year). All that in one day of FO moves that cost us absolutely nothing. And it certainly did not cost us our future flexibility to make moves down the line. And we are not even close to being finished this year. Talk about Jedis. While the entire league is throwing money around like Jabba the Hut at Alien hookers, Cubes and Donnie are manipulating the Force like it’s going out of style. And we all know the Force will never go out of style.

In this humble Jedi’s opinion, I say we have as good of a chance this year as we did in 2011, yes, I'll say it, to WIN IT ALL. Because let us be honest with ourselves again for a second, how many of you current backsliders were saying Cubes and Donnie built a championship roster prior to the ’11 season? Not a one. I mean we turned the Dust chip, the almighty Dust chip, (the Dust chip that was supposed to be equivalent to what the Millennium Falcon amounted to for the Alliance), into … Chandler? What was the media’s response to that move? What was your response to that? That’s what I thought.

Personally, I’m glad we are not a collection of super jerks with territories to annex and people (NBA fans) to enslave.

See past the media fog and the hater blasters. See past the big shiny Deathstar and the superficial power of the Darkside. Instead, be at one with yourself, your team, your franchise, be a Jedi.

‘Tis time to join the Rebel Alliance or face down the consequences - the wrath of the Mavs’ Lightsaber awaits all thee Sith!


Reader submitted. Opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of our editorial staff.