The Dallas Mavericks are not giving up. The Dallas Mavericks will hang Dirk Nowitzki's jersey in the rafters of the American Airlines Center on Wednesday.
Brad Davis,Rolando Blackman, andDerekHarper all have their jerseys retired by the Mavs. Kobe Bryant's number 24 was retired by the Mavs. Dirk is the crown jewel of the Mavericks organization.
Cuban said in a press release that Dirk is everything to the Mavs. He lifted his jersey to the rafters. It is a special day for the Mavs and their fans.
I would have to agree with Mark Cuban. Dirk is the center of that organization and its fans. We are all prisoners of the moment and get flustered when Luka Doni drops a dime or hits a step-back three. Doni needs to bring a second NBA championship to Dallas in order to become the all-time leader for the Mavs. Luka will break Dirk's records, but until he leads them to a title, he will always trail behind.
Dallas made the playoffs in the 1980s and even made it to the Western Conference Finals in88. The Mavericks missed the playoffs every year of the decade. Dirk was drafted ninth overall in 1998 and the Mavs made it to the conference finals. That was not a small feat. We are talking about the era of the NBA western conference.
The Mavs won the NBA Championship in 2011 under the leadership of Dirk Nowitzki. Dirk was the first 7-footer that I can remember playing like a guard. We hadn't seen many big men do things like that before 2000, and shooting from outside consistently, taking players off the dribble, and developing a nice handle were some of the things they did. You have to remember that the era in which any player taller than 6 feet was expected to play down low on the block was the era of the big man. If that player couldn't make a living, they were considered a marginal player.
Even though his style was initially rejected, he made it ok to be a skilled big man. A league award and a championship for a franchise that had never won before. The honor was earned by Nowitzki on Wednesday in Dallas. The Hall of Fame is the last stop on Dirk's NBA journey. It's a matter of time before that announcement.
