Dirkie Dumps Dallas Has anyone made the , "Now Dirk Nowitzki gets to carry around Peyton Manning's monkey", joke yet? No?
Then dibs.

People will rip Dallas today because that's what we do, rip people, but they caught the perfect storm in first round match-ups. They hadn't beat Golden State in the regular season, so it's no great revelation that the Warriors gave them trouble. Golden State wins the first game, negates home court advantage, and now Cinderella's got a head of steam. Yeah, a 1 shouldn't lose to a 8, but some times in sports a team perceived to be weaker just gives a team perceived to be stronger fits. Happens.

Dirk gets the, "he's not Larry-Magic-MJ", talk, but who is? Sports is littered with outstanding player/never one the big one. OK, he went 2 of 13. If he went 10 of 13 and lost, media would bait him into throwing a teammate under the bus a la Manning and, "we had protection issues all day." Point is, if you didn't win there's no winning.

Cuban, I think, might be the Mavs jinx. I don't mind Cuban...until the ball tips. There's always a controversial owner, a Charlie Finley, a Steinbrenner, a Daniel Snyder, who is a flash point for their team. Off the court, I see him as nothing more than a strong advocate for his team, and the league as a whole. On the court, he reminds me of an overzealous parent who does his kid more harm than good. I don't think the Mavericks team is aware of him, or affected by any of his histrionics. I just think he's a karma killer with all his demonstrative uber-nerdiness, and the basketball god smites his team for it. Mark, get in the owner's box and chill.

One last note from this series...at the gym Wednesday caught the talking head/roundtable segment of "Rome is Burning" on ESPN. One of the heads was one of the idiot twin hosts of ESPN's "Cheap Seats". He said, and I paraphrase here, "The Mavericks are too soft because they won too many games this year. They needed to lose more to toughen up."
Maybe the stupidest comment in the history of talking heads. Thank you, though. It just reinforces for me why "Cheap Seats" is tied with bowling reruns for dead last on things I'll watch on ESPN.

Good luck with the monkey Dirk.
Love,
Peyton  ¶ 12:30 PM