It's my pleasure to introduce Doyle Rader as the newest member of the Mavs Moneyball staff. You may already know him from his work with the Kobe Beef and its subsequent twitter. If you don't, just trust me when I say he's a great addition to the staff.
Here's some words he wrote:
Howdy, my name is Doyle Rader and I am the newest contributor to Mavs Moneyball. I came into blogging writing for Counter Kicks, a sneaker blog, back in 2010. That same year I co-founded The Kobe Beef (also my twitter handle @TheKobeBeef) with a good friend of mine. The Beef focused primarily on the NBA with occasional forays into college ball. Since then, I have written for various places. Last year I wrote a weekly Mavs column for Central Track, a blog focused on Dallas nightlife and culture, and also was a sports blogger focusing on the Mavs and the University of North Texas' men's basketball team for WFAA.com. I currently also contribute to D Magazine's FrontRow blog.
Growing up in Dallas, my earliest memories of the Mavericks were of the lowly team that limped their way through the '90s. Being stubborn, that did not deter me from liking them. In fact, there was plenty to like. Rolando Blackman, Brad Davis, Derek Harper, and Fat Lever were around for a while. Then the team drafted Jason Kidd. The Three J's reigned supreme when Toni Braxton wasn't signing this (https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=p2Rch6WvPJE) to them at various times. It was also a great source of enjoyment watching the Mavs and the Bucks battle it out for the worst record in the league. Little did they know we had an ace in the hole named Cherokee Parks who could all but guarantee us the worst record.
Of course, as I grew older the Mavs became better. We all know what happened in 2011. Along the way, I have sworn at the television, praised the defense of Michael Finley (no really, he was the only guy trying to play defense), watched Jerry Stackhouse tackle Shaq, laid in a street after the Golden State series in 2007, and generally been all over the place emotionally with this team.
Basketball is a silly game but I genuinely love it. My hope is that I can impart some of that love here.
By the way, I love Jae Crowder. (Bring it, Tobolowsky!)
Give Mr. Rader a nice welcome in the comments. And now, we'll resume our regularly scheduled programming of high quality Mavericks content.