Gotta Support the Team

I only really root for 3 sports teams (Texas Rangers, Dallas Cowboys, and the Dallas Mavericks), and I have absolutely no faith in any of them. This might be a Dallas sports thing. I don't know what it is about the city, but unqualified wins are unpossible. The Cowboys during the 90s? They won a lot, but many of the players were completely terrifying; if Deon Sanders and Michael Irvin showed up at my house in 1994, I would've hidden the steak knives and locked myself in the garage. The Texas Rangers? They've always had good guys, but they're usually a terrible team. On the rare occasion they make the playoffs, Derek Jeter probably sends Steinbrenner a note reading "Let's talk pay raise," before the series even starts.

That leaves the Mavericks, the team I support the most. For many, many, many years, they were dreadful. You could've replaced the early 90s Mavericks with that team the Globetrotters beats the hell out of each night, and absolutely no one would've noticed. In the years since, they've gotten a new owner and better players, and as a result, they win much, much more frequently. For the past several years, they've been right at the top of the NBA. It's been amazing; not only are their players great, but so is the coach and the owner. They would truly be a success, if it weren't for the fact that all of this progress has yet to manifest itself in anything resembling a championship.

Let me be perfectly clear here: I firmly believe there's not a single championship in the world that the Mavericks could win. You could match them up against my 5th grade basketball team for the Arlington, TX YMCA trophy, and we'd find a way to block Dirk Nowitzki's last second shot for the win. You could even transport this team to something entirely different from basketball, like playing Scrabble. You could give them the best set of Scrabbler coaches in the universe. They could practice for years. I don't care what kind of preparation it is, whoever is playing them would whip out 'cognoscente' for the win.

I bring all of this up because tonight, the Mavericks are trying to add a new item to their list of astonishingly agonizing ways to frustrate their fans. After taking a 3-1 lead in their best-of-7 series against their archrival San Antonio Spurs, the Mavs will now attempt to blow the lead in spectacular fashion. In the past two games, they've had potential game-winning shots and both times, the player threw up an airball. I'm almost excited to see what they'll do in their attempt to blow Game 7; a simple airball won't do. I'm expecting something along the lines of a last-second missed dunk that hits Dirk Nowitzki in the groin and ruptures his testicles on court.

I won't watch the game this evening. I'm taping it so I can fast forward through it late tonight. Then, when the clock hits 0 and the Mavericks are eliminated, I can point to Octopussy and say, "I knew this would happen." She will lick herself, and the world will go on. Go Mavs.