NBA – History of Dallas Mavericks

 

The Dallas Mavericks have been around since 1980 and are a professional basketball team that plays in the National Basketball Association. They play in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference of the league and are based out of Dallas, TX. The Mavericks have consistently been a great team in the league with a few exceptions. They have won a conference championship in 2006 and have also won three individual division titles in 1987, 2007, and most recently in 2010. They have had some incredible players over the years including Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, and Jason Kidd but have still yet to capture a Championship. The Mavs have one of the most valuable franchises in the league at about $466 million. This puts them as having the seventh most valuable franchise among NBA teams.

The Mavericks were first created in 1980 and had a rough time putting together a team. In the 1981 draft they were able to pick up Jay Vincent, Mark Aguirre, and Rolando Blackman to help back their lone superstar, Brad Davis, and make something of the team. In 1982 they had their first winning season but were still not able to reach the playoffs. In 1983 they picked up Derek Harper in the draft and made their first appearance in the post season. Around 1986 the Mavericks were finally starting to get into their groove. They got a Midwest Division Title that year but they went out early in the playoffs after suffering a defeat to the Seattle Supersonics. The team would visit the playoffs over the next few years but still struggled to get too far into the post season.

By 1990 they would lose one of their valuable players in Sam Perkins and would fall to the bottom of the standings with only 28 wins on the season. In 1994 the Mavericks picked up Jason Kidd in the draft, and he had a supporting cast of Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn. They were a formidable scoring force in the league and Jason Kidd even led the league that year with triple doubles. Even with these weapons, however, the team still was not able to reach the playoffs so they went through another rebuilding stage where they got rid of Jason Kidd and got Michael Finley, Sam Cassell, and A.C. Green. This didn’t prove to do too much until in 1998 they secured the rights to Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash and would start a dominant run.

They would also change management when Mark Cuban bought the franchise from its original owners. This lineup would prove to be a good one as the Dallas Mavericks would reach the NBA Finals in 2004-2005 but ended up losing to the Miami Heat in six games. Since then they have traded out Nash and acquired Jason Kidd again and have built a solid team. Going into the 2010 playoffs they were the second ranked team in the Western Conference. They have showed their dominance over other teams in the league and look to be a real force in the post season. Dirk Nowitzki is nearly unstoppable from anywhere on the floor and Jason Kidd is playing as well as he did when he entered the league sixteen years ago.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *