(etta james voice) at last!

sk: 6/13, late in the evening, I finally found an intro track:

"If the love that I've felt for you's gone.
If the river I've cried ain't that long,
Then I'm wrong, yeah I'm wrong, this ain't a love song;

If the pain that I'm feeling so strong,
Ain't the reason I'm holding on,
Then I'm wrong, yeah I'm wrong, this ain't a love song ...

(LaKisha Jones version from "Idol's" finest hour ...)

---------------------

Flash back with me for a moment. To a fun-filled time of my life also known as "my junior year of college". For so many reasons, this was the funnest year of my life. I turned 21. It was the "summer of oppressive heat"*, when the grass was dead by mid June, and the temperature was still in triple digits in early October.

(*: the National Weather Service site notes that 1998 saw the following records get smashed in North Texas:

* warmest April to July ever -- 77.65 degrees average temperature.
* average July high temperature of 101.2 degrees. (stevo voice) Suh-weet!
* driest April to July ever -- 4.46 inches of rain (total).
* 29 consecutive days above 100 (June 23 to August 3).
* 56 total days above 100 degreees.
* 94 total days above 90 degrees.
* 14 consecutive days where the temperature never dropped below 80 (July 19 to August 1).
* 39 total days where the temperature never dropped below 80.
* a grand total of 0.46 inches of rain fell between June 12 and September 10.

Some people might call that "insanely hot", "hellish conditions", and would immediately invoke Steve Rule 34 to describe anyone who wants to live in those conditions. Me? I call it "paradise". Except not (meatloaf voice) "by the dashboard lights" ... )

Cue March 5, 1998. Spring is beginning to arrive in the Metroplex. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, me and Frank are blowing off class to sit outside with a cooler full of beer, life is good. Spring break for me is still a week away, but for two of my best friends up in Lawrence, it was already here. So my good buddies Gregg and Jasson came down to visit for a few days, under the proven "hey, it's warmer where Steve is than it is where we are!" theory that you just couldn't argue with.

That Thursday night, we headed over to the West End. Had some dinner at the Hard Rock. And then, for reasons that not even I can understand 13 years later, we paid to attend a basketball game.

Not just any basketball game -- it was a battle of the two worst teams in the League. The Mavericks, entering the game with 10 wins (and already having posted losing streaks of both 10 and 15 games -- impressive!!!) would face off against the Clippers, who somehow entered the game as the "better team" with 12 wins (and already having posted losing streaks of 7, 8, and 9 games -- really impressive!!!). You want to talk about star power? The current Heat got nothing on the Mavs and Clips back then! Check out this stud talent that graced Reunion Arena with it's presence that night:

Clips Starting Lineup: SF Lamond Murray, PF Rodney Rogers, C Ike Austin, PG Darrick Martin, SG Eric Piatkowski.
Mavs Starting Lineup: SF Cedric Ceballos, PF A.C. Green, C Eric Riley, SG / SF Michael Finley, PG Khalid Reeves.

My God, that's ... that's exactly zero future Hall of Famers on the floor.

But the benches, I mean, what a wealth of talent that every team no doubt was beating down the doors at the trading deadline to get ahold of:

Clips Reserves: PF Maurice Taylor, SG James Robinson, C Keith Closs, PG Pooh Richardson, SG Charles Smith.
Mavs Reserves: C Chris Antsey, PF Martin Muursepp, SG Hubert Davis, SG Bubba Wells, PG Erick Strickland.

Holy cow, that's ... that's ten really sh*tty players.

Yes, the three of us paid premium scalpers prices to attend this battle of the beasts. (I believe we paid $15 / ticket on a $65 face value lower level ticket, with a parking pass thrown in. And you know what? I still argue we overpaid. Although the most priceless expression might have been on the scalper’s face. He seemed genuinely moved that someone – anyone! – was buying tickets for this game.)

The Mavs somehow won this game (119-109 final, yet more proof that even the worst imaginable game the League has to offer, and trust me, this was eight levels of awful, is still so superior to 97.6% of what the college game has to offer, that it's obscene). And though there was no way to know it at the time, this one game, was the catalyst to the championship the Mavs just earned. Don't believe me? Fine, here we go.

First, a little more background.

The ONLY local sports team that was terrible while I was in college ... well, ok, was my school's football program, which culminated an incredible fall from co-Southwest Conference champs the year before I arrived, to needing to beat our rival SMU on the final game of the season my junior year to avoid an 0-12 campaign. (We won 13-10 in overtime, and you're damned right all 14 of us in attendance rushed the field!) But other than Horned Frog football, nothing was worse than Dallas Mavericks basketball.

The Rangers won the division three of my four years there. As did the Cowboys, and they tacked on a Super Bowl championship to boot. The Stars made the playoffs three times, won the division twice, and would win the Stanley Cup right after I graduated. TCU basketball was a tournament staple under Billy Tubbs. (They were the four seed in 1998.) TCU baseball was (and still is) a threat to reach Omaha every June (although sadly, they won't be there next week when I hope to make the annual trek up for a couple days of baseball in the sun.)

Then ... there were the Mavs. As Wikipedia so politely puts it:

"The 1990s were known as the "dark ages". They never reached the playoffs from 1991-2000, bottoming out with an 11-71 mark in 1992-1993, and a 13-69 mark the following season." (Which meant the 1997-1998 Mavs we paid to watch, were actually an improvement over the prior seasons! At 10-53 entering this contest, they were "going in the right direction!" Oy.)

The Mavs couldn't catch a break. They draft the "Three J's" in Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, and Jimmy Jackson ... only to see Mashburn never stay healthy, Jackson get into a ridiculous feud with Jason Kidd over who had first dibs on banging Toni Braxton**, and Kidd eventually demanding (and receiving) a trade to get the hell away from the losing and the drama. They cycled through horrific coaches like I cycle through handles of vodka: early and often. They gave Quinn Buckner his first (and only) head coaching job, where he was one-and-done after that previously mentioned 11 win season. They replaced him with Jim Cleamons, who was actually worse, believe it or not. (Cleamons was fired early in the 1997-1998 season). They drug Dick Motta out of whatever retirement community he was relaxing in to oversee the rebuilding effort (epic fail).

(**: I know she's the star of one of the "worst of the worst" in reality television now, but good God, was Toni Braxton hot in her day or what? My Lord, she was smoking hot. I totally get why neither guy wanted to give an inch or eight over claiming her.)

And the draft picks were even worse. They used first rounders on Tony Dumas, Chris Antsey, Chris Gatling. They couldn't nail a second rounder to save their lives. Toss in the founder of the club being so disallusioned by the losing that he sold out for pennies on the dollar to Ross Perot's kid***, and you could make a damned good argument that the worst team in the League, if not in all professional sports, entering the lockout-shortened 1999 season was the Dallas Mavericks.

(***: it's not possible to put into words how horrific the Ross Perot Jr. era was. He made Rachel Phelps from "Major League" look like a top flight owner. Thankfully, Donald Carter loved his old team so much (and still had enough ownership stake in it), that he was able to marshall enough public pressure on Perot Jr. to sell out to some internet broadcasting hot shot named Mark Cuban in 1999. Hope that helps understand why Cuban was so insistent on Don Carter accepting the O'Brien Trophy last night.)

Culminating with what had to be rock bottom that magical night in March 1998, when they hauled the corpse of Don Nelson off the beaches of Maui, gave him the keys to the franchise, and watched Dick Motta, who was just there for Perot Jr's paycheck and coached like it, do battle with Bill Fitch, who was just there for Donald Sterling's paycheck and coached like it.

It was brutally awful. It was utterly unwatchable.

And yet, that game changed the course of a franchise. Because the win that night, an entertaining, up-and-down the court, defense be damned effort, convinced Don Nelson (who, to the surprise of no one, eventually found his way to the bench) to play that style the rest of the year. It led the Mavs to close 9-9, allowing the Clippers to edge out the Mavericks for the top lottery odds. (And the Clips won said lottery.)

That offseason, Cuban stepped up to buy up majority ownership of the Mavericks, immediately turning the Mavericks from a cheap-skate, "cut every corner" organization to one that was, in the worn-out words of Randy Jackson, "in it to win it!" Cuban (and Stars owner Tom Hicks) stepped up and financed the new American Airlines Centre****, that opened in 2001.

(****: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Centre is much cooler than Center. The Canadians can’t beat us at much, but they whip our ass when it comes to naming an arena. Excuse me, Centre.)

But most importantly, that late winning streak in 1998 that the victory over the Clippers sparked, gave the Clips the number one pick in the 1998 NBA Draft. The Clippers, without an obvious choice at number one, took a gamble on Michael Olowokandi. The Mavericks actually slid all the way to sixth when the lottery took place, and at six, they drafted Robert "Tractor" Traylor from Michigan, then immediately traded him to Milwaukee for the rights to some unknown German product by the name of Dirk Nowitzki, as well as guard Pat Garrity. Even more amazingly, they shipped Pat Garrity off to the Phoenix Suns for some unknown Canadian product by the name of Steve Nash.

Bam. In one offseason, the Mavericks were reborn. They won 50 games in 2000, and have won at least 50 games every season since then (tying the Spurs for the longest current mark in the League at 12.) They finally poked a couple holes in the glass ceiling in 2006, reaching the Finals for the first time in franchise history. And then, after the Crime of 2006, the humiliation of 2007, the collapse of 2009, and the annihilation of 2010, this unlikely squad of grizzled veterans and one plucky youngster set aside a frustrating regular season, ignored everything the so-called "experts" had to say about them, and won the final game of the NBA season Sunday night in Miami, 105-95, in a game that was really never in doubt from halftime onward.

I watched last night on "the deck", with a few fellow Dallas transplants and fans. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Here's my final thoughts on the best NBA Finals of my lifetime, an event that was made possible beginning with that warm March evening 13 years ago.

* The obvious reaction this morning will be to say that the Heat "choked", that LeBron "choked", that D Wade "choked". It's like the ghost of Allen Ludden has entered the room and is constantly saying "the password is, choked". And I could not disagree stronger with that sentiment.

For starters, to "choke", you have to whiz away a lead. The Heat did not lead the entire second half outside of one brief second very early on, and never got closer than four points in the 4th quarter. And they only got that close once. No, last night wasn't about Miami "choking", it was about Dallas "winning", with incredible perimeter shooting, solid coaching (Carlisle is so freaking underrated. He put the clown suit on Spoelstra and was honking his nose, he so outcoached him in this series), and (for the most part) poise in the heat of the moment.

Last night was not a "choke", it was a "win". One team simply wanted it more.

Now, you can argue game two was a "choke", and game four, and game five, and very nearly game three as well. But last night was not a "choke".

* I am very curious to know what the NBA would have done had there been a game seven regarding suspensions for the Chalmers / Haslem / Stevenson incident. The only moment of last night's game that I did not enjoy, was poor Jeff Van Gundy having to relive the 1997 flameout thanks to the brawl in Miami in game five. I truly believe the 1996-1997 Knicks would have taken Chicago to seven, if not won it in six. That team was the best Knicks team of the Jordan era. (They were the only team to even split a series with Chicago that year, and they took 3 of 4, including the last game of the season, a prime-time ass-whipping at the United Centre that might have been my favorite game of the Ewing years.) Sadly, thanks to the infamous brawl that everyone remembers mostly for Jeff Van Gundy hanging on Alonzo Mourning's leg like a chihuahua, we'll never know.

(My guess? Van Gundy and Jackson were right, and the NBA wouldn't have suspended anyone. Because if this thing had reached a game seven, there isn't a shot in hell David Stern would want a stupid shoving match that did no harm in the end, to alter the outcome of a championship. And you know what? Good for Stern if that's the case. Too bad he didn't share that sentiment fourteen years ago when it involved the Knicks, because God forbid anyone stand in His Airness' way of a fifth title. But at least Stern has learned from his mistakes, and that's what counts, I guess.)

* From the "stuff only Stevo would notice" department: that beautiful looking blonde sitting next to Mark Anthony last night behind the Heat's bench, was most definitely not Jennifer Lopez.

* I know it's early, and I know we've still got a looming lockout that threatens to destroy all the positive energy this postseason has brought to the League ... but come on, ESPN / ABC. There's only one acceptable replacement for Mark Jackson in the booth. Bring back Bill Walton! It's a crime to have to listen to Walton broadcast Kings games on local TV, instead of being on the national stage where he belongs.

(Oh, and while I'm at it, TNT? Can you PLEASE fire Reggie Miller already? The guy sounds less intelligent than me halfway through a 311 concert, and the last one of those I attended, a "t-shirt worn as a turban" was involved. Please, TNT guys, Fire Reggie Miller!)

* Could not be happier for Mark Cuban, who is the epitome of what sports ownership should be. Like I noted on Facebook, what I wouldn't give for one of the teams I love, to have an owner like him. (And please Chiefs fans, spare me the "Clark Hunt seems ok" bullsh*t. Any owner who uses the lockout (that he and his fellow owners started) to save a couple bucks by hacking non-player employee salaries during it, is a cheap-ass weasel. Clark has revealed his true colors in this battle, and like 95% of the owners in sports, they ain't pretty to look at. And yeah, it’s an extremely disappointing development. I had high hopes for the guy. Turns out, I was just high.)

* Also thrilled for Dirk, obviously. And yes, I find it completely ironic that the folks who are so quick to label LBJ a "choker" today, have been calling Dirk that for at least five years now. Just like Dirk wasn't a "choker", LBJ isn't one either. Now, you can argue that LBJ is a "quitter", and there's ample evidence to support that idea, but he's not a "choker".

* If anyone can be called a "choker" last night, its Dwyane Wade. The moment I knew Dallas was going to win was with about 8 minutes left, when Mark Jackson said something like "Dwyane Wade has the look in his eyes of someone ready to take over this game". Wade promptly bricked a three, then on his next possession, dribbled out of bounds off his foot. He also played (at best) half assed defense on Barea's 3 pointer, and then his drive down the heart of the lane for a sick reverse layup that pretty much sealed the game.

* With about six to play, Dirk was 6 for 23 shooting. You're damned right I wanted him to miss his next shot, not shoot again, and match Kobe "6 for 24" in the clinching game to win Finals MVP. Because just as it was absolutely ridiculous that people used one off night to rip Kobe last year, it would have been even more ridiculous to take one off night to rip Dirk this year. Dallas gets swept if Nowitzki isn't on the roster, just like Boston wins in 5 at most last year if Kobe isn't on the floor. Dirk single-handedly rallied Dallas in games two and four, and along with Jason Kidd, pulled off another epic comeback in game five. If that isn't the definition of MVP, then I'm even more clueless than most folks think I am.

* Loved, absolutely loved, Mark Cuban having David Stern present the trophy to Donald Carter. Although I gotta admit, as I replied to my buddy Anthony when he asked what I was feeling, "until trophy in cubans hand im in disbelief".

* Also laughed out loud at Van Gundy, Breen, and Jackson discussing before the trophy had even been presented if Miami should blow the experiment up. And of course, if it's an idiot's opinion you're looking for, you can absolutely be certain that Jason Whitlock wrote the same thing at foxsports.com this morning. Pull the plug after one year. Uuh, fellas? Year one of said experiment ended two wins away from total and complete success. I wouldn't touch a thing. Other than hope the MLE survives the CBA negotiation, and you can use that to grab up a true point. (Luke Ridnour anyone?)

* Something I never dreamed I'd live to see: the day when I'd be screaming "f*cking Mario Chalmers!", and not mean it as a compliment. Uum, not that I ever like started bawling like someone in a S&M cession gone horribly wrong and curled up in the fetal position continuing to cry for four straight minutes after Mario Chalmers hit a three pointer before. Speaking of Super Mario ...

* Chalmers should have been ejected for his role in "Not Quite a Brawl-a-Palooza 2011". From my perspective, it appeared Haslim was walking off the court happy about hitting the last shot headed into timeout (continuing a 14-0 Miami run), and had his arm extended up in a celebratory moment. Then Deshawn Stevenson (not exactly the brightest bulb in the room) wasn't paying attention where he was walking, and brushed his shoulder on Haslim's elbow-ish area. After a brief moment of "what the ...", both guys appeared to know what had happened, and were walking off, no harm done ... until Chalmers comes in from fifty feet away to shove Stevenson in the back. Cue the "Almost Brawl", as both benches tried to maintain some order (yet another reason I wouldn't have suspended anyone -- both benches were clearly working to control the situation. The only person escalating it was Chalmers.) It was stupid on Chalmers part, and should have merited an ejection (but not a suspension. Unless punches are thrown, there's no reason to suspend anyone.) Oh, speaking of this situation ...

* How in the hell is Stu Jackson still in charge of NBA punishments and suspensions? This guy was the only coach the Knicks had for 20 straight years who couldn't get above .500. He did such an "outstanding" job running the Vancouver Grizzlies that they fled for that basketball mecca called Memphis, Tennessee. And THIS is the guy in charge of figuring out flagrant twos and suspension rulings? My head hurts just thinking about that.

* Too bad Bennett Salvatore never officiated a game in this series. Although you wouldn't have known it by Miami's 20 plus advantage in foul shots last night. Well, actually you would have -- every time Mike Breen (who was way, way off his usual A+ game last night) would point out the foul shot disparity, I'd sit there and shake my head in "really? Mike? You're this freaking stupid tonight?!?!" frustration. The Heat pounded the ball inside all night long. The Mavs settled for (and consistently hit) the 12 to 15 foot jumper. Which team is going to get fouled more, the team pounding the rim every possession, or the team working the ball around the key until someone pops open from 15 feet out? Duh. Of course Miami had a foul shot edge.

* Finally, I think I'm most glad of all for Jason Kidd. (john madden voice) Now here's a guy ... who pretty much single-handedly led the Nets (the Nets for crying out loud!) to back-to-back Eastern championships, before coming up just short in the Finals to the two dynasties of the last decade (Lakers, Spurs). He gets traded back to Dallas a couple years ago, and everyone rips the deal. Everyone says he's old, he's washed up, that Dallas needs to go younger at the point.

And all Kidd does, is hit the biggest shot in franchise history in game five (a three pointer to put the Mavs ahead for good 100-98), and then hits another three to in essence clinch the championship. I really felt good for him.

* Well ok, not quite "finally" -- one last item. Please, guys, learn a lesson from the NFL, and especially from the NHL. Do NOT destroy a good thing that you've got going because you can't figure out how to split up billions of dollars amongst friends. Especially learn from the NHL -- the sport was never more popular than in the aftermath of the amazing 94 playoffs and Stanley Cup Finals (Rangers beat the Canucks in 7). Then, they locked out the players, and other than a brief moment in the early 2000s when Ray Bourque won the Cup in Denver, nobody has cared about the NHL since. Fans are so disgusted by the NFL right now that both sides are actually scared enough to finally negotiate. Please, David Stern, Billy Hunter, Adam Silver, let's not screw this up. There's 19 days until the CBA expires, only one of which needs to be spent on basketball related activity (the draft, 10 days from now). If you aren't negotiating face to face every day from this point until July 1st, you need your heads examined. And deserve the financial catastrophe a fan backlash would unleash on your sport.