Dallas Mavericks

Dallas Mavericks COMPLIER BY. SAENGCHAI KOITHONG

American basketball team

The Dallas Mavericks story from past to present

DALLAS MAVERICKS, AMERICAN PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL TEAM BASED IN
DALLAS THAT PLAYS IN THE NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION (NBA). THE

MAVERICKS HAVE WON ONE NBA CHAMPIONSHIP (2011).

The Mavericks were founded in 1980 and, like most
expansion teams, struggled in their first seasons in
the NBA. Dallas posted its first winning season and
gained a playoff berth in its fourth year, behind
young stars Mark Aguirre, Derek Harper, and
Rolando Blackman. The team continued to infuse its
roster with talent through savvy draft choices in
the mid-1980s, and the Mavericks qualified for the
postseason in five consecutive years from the
1983–84 season to the 1987–88 season, which
included a berth in the Western Conference finals
in 1988. By 1990 many of the team’s star players
had left Dallas—either via free agency or trades—
and the Mavericks fell into a prolonged period of
futility. The team finished with a losing record in
each year of the following decade, including back-
to-back woeful seasons of 11–71 and 13–69.

The Mavericks’ turnaround began with the arrival of point
guard Steve Nash and forward Dirk Nowitzki before the
1998–99 season. In 2000 Internet entrepreneur Mark
Cuban purchased the franchise and initiated a new era of
free spending for the Mavericks. Cuban, one of the
league’s most flamboyant and outspoken owners,
upgraded the team’s facilities and made Dallas an
attractive location for free agents for the first time in
years. Head coach and general manager Don Nelson
oversaw the acquisition of quality supporting talent, and
Dallas trotted out high-powered offenses led by Nash,
Nowitzki, and sharpshooter Michael Finley.

The Mavericks were routinely one of the top teams in the
Western Conference in the first decade of the 21st
century, and, despite Nash’s having left Dallas in 2004,
they advanced to the first NBA finals berth in team
history in 2006, when they lost to the Miami Heat in six
games. The Mavericks had the best regular-season record
in the NBA in 2006–07 but experienced playoff
disappointment: in the opening postseason series, Dallas
became the first top-seeded team to lose a seven-game
series to an eighth-seeded (lowest-seeded) team, the
Golden State Warriors.

Dallas remained one of the NBA’s better teams through the
end of the first decade of the 21st century, and in 2009–10 it
became the fourth team in league history to post 10
consecutive seasons of at least 50 victories. In 2010–11,
behind tremendous playoff scoring by Nowitzki, the
Mavericks again advanced to the NBA finals, where they
defeated the Heat to capture their first NBA championship.

In 2012–13 an aging Mavericks team posted a .500 record,
which brought an end to their 12-year playoff streak. The
team rebounded the following season to win 49 games and
clinch a postseason berth. Dallas also qualified for the
playoffs over the next two seasons, but the team never
advanced past the first round in those three appearances. In
2016–17 a further depleted roster and a less effective
Nowitzki resulted in the team posting its first losing record
in 17 seasons. In the subsequent two seasons the Mavericks
continued to produce losing records, and Nowitzki’s role was
further reduced until he retired at the end of the 2018–19
campaign that saw Dallas finish last in its division.



The transition from the Dirk Nowitzki era has gone smoothly
as we now look at Luka Doncic as the face of the Dallas
Mavericks. Dallas also made a trade for Kristaps Porzingis,
which was a risky move given the ACL injury he suffered the
year prior. The move looks to have paid off as the Mavericks
are one of the most improved teams. Outside of Doncic and
Porzingis, they have a lot of underrated and scrappy players
that make them a dangerous team to face. Names like Delon
Wright and Tim Hardaway are some of the guard depth that
they have.

Dallas Mavericks (2021)





Inheritors of the Will of Mavericks