Dallas Mavericks

The Dallas Mavericks will win the NBA championship.

Just some wishful thinking from a fan who watched every game from the 1991-1992 season. The year the pitiful squad won as many games as the number of years I had been alive. That's right: 11. 11 games in an 82 game season? Wow. And four of those wins were against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Led by the great Christian Laettner.

The Mavericks have since seen better days. Winning 40 games in the 1999-2000 season, the mavericks have been over .500 in every season after that. Where were the crazy fans then? Where were the body-painters, the "Mavs Fans For Life" when they won 13 games in '92-93? I didn't see anyone wearing Mavericks apparel back then? I didn't hear anyone analyzing games or talking about playoff matchups then? And I sure didn't hear people saying, "Oh the Mavs will never win it all." It would be asinine to even use "Mavs" and "win" in the same sentence.

Where were the analyzers, the critics? Everyone would have been happy with a .500 record, let alone a 10-10 playoff performance as the Mavs pulled off last year. 10 and 10! They won 11 games one entire season and they won 10 games in the playoffs. That's great! Success! But no.

Now that the Mavs have a fair-weather fan following, no one will be satisfied until the Larry O'Brien trophy is safe in the halls of the American Airlines Center. Now there's nothing wrong with high expectations, but c'mon. Dallas completely change the make-up of their team, have two rookies (albeit incredible rookies) playing heavy minutes, and everyone assumes they'll win a championship. There aren't any other teams in the Western Conference. A conference better, maybe, than any other conference in league history. In the Midwest Division alone, all seven teams were over .500. All seven teams would have easily made the playoffs in the East or even the West in any other year.

But the stigma remains: win it all or you're horrible. No, I'll tell you what horrible is: 11-71. That's horrible. 13-69. That's horrible. Only rooting for a team the "experts" say have a chance to win it all. That's horrible.

You show me 10 tickets from the years 1991-1998 and I'll call you a true Mavericks fan. If you can't do that? Don't come complaining to me telling me how bad the Mavericks are. That they looked horrible last night. What do you care? As soon as they drop off the map, so will you.

If the Mavericks get swept in the first round this year, it will be a successful year. Dallas hasn't won fewer than 53 games since 2000-2001, but the Western Conference has NEVER been stronger. They played the Kings in the opening round for crying out loud. The Kings! That's not a first round opponent. That's the Conference Finals.

Until you show me those ticket stubs. I don't want to talk to you.