The 12 biggest Dallas Maverick stories of 2014

January

This was a relatively quiet month. Dallas went 9-8, losing twice to the Clippers -- including the second one where they blew a huge fourth quarter lead.

I'm going to call the biggest story of the month a tie between these two: Devin Harris says he can save Justin Bieber and Monta Ellis Jr.'s introduction to the world on the dance cam. It was a quiet 31 days, yes.

February

Dirk Nowitzki played in his 12th All-Star Game in New Orleans and we were there to cover it. We also covered all the Mavs vacationing together.

Nowitzki barely played and missed both shots he attempted, but who cares. He was definitely there and it was awesome. My favorite memory is Kobe Bryant trying to show up and start his scheduled press conference like 30 minutes early, only to realize there was somebody else still in the room talking to media. So him and his whole entourage walked all the way back to wherever they were hanging out in the Smoothie King Center before shamefully making a second trip at his scheduled time.

March

The Mavericks went 8-6 as they ramped up towards the playoffs and lost two overtime games. Samuel Dalembert had a really good stretch of games for whatever reason. It wasn't a great month, but it wasn't terrible.

By far the best thing to come out of March, though, was Dirk getting a shoutout on Lil B's Kevin Durant diss track.

April

After a one-year hiatus, the Mavericks made the playoffs again in a wild, raucous comeback victory at the American Airlines Center against the Suns. It was a great game from start to finish. Monta Ellis was incredible, scoring 37 points on 15-23 shooting.

May

Dallas improbably, amazingly takes the San Antonio Spurs to a Game 7 in the first round of the NBA playoffs. (Most of this series took place in April, yes, but I had to make everything fit.)

The lasting moment, of course, was Vince Carter's game-winning 3-pointer from the left corner. It's a shot that I watched with my own eyes and that will forever be seared into my memory in vivid detail. I went into vivid detail a couple days after it happened.

Dallas would, of course, get slaughtered in Game 7. The Spurs' overwhelming talent and schemes finally overcame a ragtag Mavericks defense that Shawn Marion simply was not capable of single-handedly holding together anymore. But in the six games before that, San Antonio and Dallas provided basketball for the ages, basketball that should be sealed up and bottled into a time capsule for future generations to marvel at, basketball that will live on for decades for those who saw it happened.

June

Tyson Chandler rejoins the Mavericks through trade. I was in one of my afternoon summer classes but immediately hopped up, ran around the corner to the student newspaper office and hammered out the story when it happened. Good times.

We also declared the victory of the Dirk Game Winners Tourney at the beginning of the month! And Dirk won his first Heroes Celebrity Baseball Game. Think I'll stick with Tyson as the biggest story of the month, though.

July

Welcome to Dallas, Chandler Parsons. Mark Cuban stared down Daryl Morey, took his lunch money and grabbed one of his star players. It was a party in Dallas.

August

The lull that comes in August after free agency and Summer League finishes up is always the worst. To alleviate that, we ran 'Championship Week', giving us about 15 absolutely incredible stories remember the greatness that was 2011. If I had to pick my two favorites, I'd probably pick these two (but seriously everything published that week was fantastic): The hard is what makes it great: remembering my dad through the 2011 Finals and How the 2011 Dallas Mavericks trophy gave me the most expensive hangover of my life. Drastically different stories but both excellent in their own way.

September

New jerseys in Dallas? Meet the skyline jerseys, who -- after some initial Reunion Tower controversy -- I think we all agreed were pretty cool lookin'. We talked to the guy who designed them and looked back at the complete history of Dallas Maverick uniforms.

October

Bring on the NBA season, which we missed so, so much. After a barely memorable but informative preseason, the Mavericks opened the season on the road against the Spurs in a 101-100 loss in which Chandler Parsons missed a potential game-winning 3-point attempt.

But everything was OK once J.J. Barea returned, taking Gal Mekel's roster spot. Run DMC also happened this month.

November

The Mavericks have a 53-point win and a 140-point win, yet all anyone can talk about is Chandler Parsons' slow start. It became such an issue that we as a staff felt we had to write a 3,000 novel, acknowledging his struggles but ultimately saying: "calm the eff down, everyone. He's going to be fine."

Anybody still worried about Chandler Parsons? 63% true shooting in December. pic.twitter.com/142vKjhGrt

— Tim Cato (@tim_cato) January 3, 2015

December

Rajon Rondo becomes a Maverick. While understanding the risks, we are excited. Also, a Taylor Swift song was rewritten for him.

There you have it. 2014 had a lot to offer Maverick fans, and I'm sure there were plenty of things I missed. What was your favorite storyline or thing to happen in 2014?