Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Vinnie Goodwill on Why Dirk’s 2011 Title Run Changed Everything about his Legacy | 06.02

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Vinnie Goodwill on Why Dirk’s 2011 Title Run Changed Everything about his Legacy | 06.02 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Wave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: My name is Beaumontie Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: get your podcasts. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday, and sometimes it
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: lines up so good that we kind of get to
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: talk about two things at one time. because it's all
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: about the same dude. So I got my man Vinny
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  Speaker 2: Goodwill at ESPN here, and we are going to talk about,
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: at once, the 2006 finals and the 2011 finals and
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the connective tissue between the two being Dirk Nowitzki. Quietly,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: one of the more interesting careers that we've had. I
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: feel like very similar to Kobe Bryant. that the version
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: of the Dirk story that I feel like we tell
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  Speaker 2: now is so much less interesting than the actual story
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: that came about at the time, but for whatever reason,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: we make it one-dimensional. For Dirk, I think we make
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  Speaker 2: it one-dimensional just because of what happened in 2011, but
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  Speaker 2: his whole career, like, you tell me if I'm wrong here,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like he is an maybe the most pioneering
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: of the international players, right? And there were guys that, obviously,
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  Speaker 2: Akeem Olajuwon had come before him, for example. So he's
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  Speaker 2: not like he's the first international player, but he didn't
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  Speaker 2: play American college ball. And you tell me if I'm wrong,
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  Speaker 2: I would argue of those guys, even if you're talking
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  Speaker 2: about Drazen Petrovic, any of them, nobody felt like he
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  Speaker 2: had more of a European game than Dirk Nowitzki did.
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  Speaker 2: And I don't mean, and at that time, that wasn't
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  Speaker 2: that complimentary.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't a compliment. It was, like, remember Barkley
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  Speaker 1: saying all this stuff about Golden State before Golden State
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  Speaker 1: won a German shooting team, can't win a championship? Yeah.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: If you change the name to that, to Dirk, he
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: would say the same thing. You know what I mean?
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  Speaker 1: He would say the exact same thing. And also, remember,
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  Speaker 1: Barkley was the dude that offered Dirk a scholarship or,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: not a scholarship, you know, an incentive to come play
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  Speaker 1: at Auburn when he saw him play, I think, in
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the 1996 season. warm-ups to the Olympics. So that was
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  Speaker 1: two full years before he got to the league. And
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Chuck is like, oh no, this dude is coming, but
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he can win a championship. Like
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Dirk isn't the greatest international player, right? But like you said, pioneering.
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  Speaker 1: He's the one that you feel like you can make
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: another one of, even though you can't make another Dirk.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: You can't make another Dirk seven feet tall with that
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  Speaker 1: high release, that level of touch. Young Dirk with that
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  Speaker 1: level of, you know, mobility as much as mobility as
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  Speaker 1: someone like him was going to have. But the way
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: he changed the game in the way of, you know,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I was looking at the two series we're going to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: talk about, and I was just looking at the spacing
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: of the floor and in both of those series, and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: even though it wasn't the pace and space sign, it
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: was still reasonably sprint because you had to account for
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: a seven-foot dude who could shoot threes, and not just
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: as a function, because you had seven-footers who could shoot, right?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: You know, the Robert O'Reilly, the Bill Lambert, blah, blah, blah.
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  Speaker 1: But to have that be the way that you built
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  Speaker 1: your team and your franchise around, that was a big
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: chance that Nelly took.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Well, see, that's the thing.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like we have to start this story well
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: before Dirk sets foot in the United States. And it
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: starts with the crazy kooky mind of Don Nelson.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: And so Nelson was a very interesting coach in the
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: sense that he was pioneering in the ways that he
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: wanted to play basketball and the new things he always
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  Speaker 2: wanted to try and experiment with. Sometimes at the expense
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  Speaker 2: of actually winning basketball games.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: Like it's I think he retired at the all time
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  Speaker 2: winning his coach in NBA history. Nobody thought of him
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  Speaker 2: in that sort of way because there was always kind
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: of this push and pull against performance of his teams.
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  Speaker 2: And the fact that he just kind of like fucking
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  Speaker 2: around and see what can happen. And I think a
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  Speaker 2: very important part of the Don Nelson fucking around. There
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  Speaker 2: was a seven footer shooting threes that we don't talk
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  Speaker 2: about as much because he wasn't seven foot.
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  Speaker 3: He was seven six and his name was Manu Bowe.
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  Speaker 2: Don Nelson have a new ball standing a zillion feet
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  Speaker 2: away from the basket on one end of the floor
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  Speaker 2: and blocking shots on the other. And it seemed like
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  Speaker 2: a gimmick, but it actually turned out to be a
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  Speaker 2: glimpse into the future.
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  Speaker 3: And Nelson.
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  Speaker 2: Always I felt like had an eye towards that sort
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  Speaker 2: of European game of this idea. We're going to have
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  Speaker 2: a bunch of guys that can shoot and face the basket.
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  Speaker 2: And when you get to 98, when he gets him now,
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  Speaker 2: he's finally.
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  Speaker 3: Got his guy. But I do think the part of
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  Speaker 3: this that.
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  Speaker 2: We, we forget at this point is Nelly had been
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  Speaker 2: tinkering with this for a very long time.
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  Speaker 1: No. And I'll take you back further than when Luke Bowe,
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  Speaker 1: when he was in Milwaukee, Jack Sigma, you know, like we, we,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: we forget about those Milwaukee teams because they could never
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: get over the hump of the of the 76ers and
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: the Celtics, they're kind of lost to time. But those,
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  Speaker 1: those teams that the Sidney Moncriefs and Terry Cummings, when
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  Speaker 1: he was there for a few years.
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  Speaker 3: Paul Pressey is point forward.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Marcus Johnson, I guess, ahead of that.
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  Speaker 1: Right. And Jack Sigma was there with that funky high release,
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  Speaker 1: that pump fake. And he played the game. He could
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: play the game in the post, but he played the
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  Speaker 1: game face in the room, 15, 16 feet out, and
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  Speaker 1: then start to take it back a little bit further.
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  Speaker 1: So before that, if you even if you thought Maloubo
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  Speaker 1: was a gimmick right it was evidence that he had
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  Speaker 1: been doing this 40 years ago and then also remember
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: he had that disastrous stint with the New York Knicks
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  Speaker 1: after Pat Riley was after Pat Riley left and he
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  Speaker 1: was trying that stuff there but that just wasn't the
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  Speaker 1: place to do it and that wasn't the team to
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  Speaker 1: do it with at that.
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  Speaker 2: Time well I also think that that Ties into what
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  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about with Dirk, because one thing
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  Speaker 2: that seemed to happen after the disaster extent with the Knicks,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: and for those of you who weren't around for this,
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  Speaker 2: this is after Pat Riley leaves, they hired Don Nelson,
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  Speaker 2: who's a big-name coach, big-name hire, and the problems were
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  Speaker 2: not on-court issues. They were off-court issues, and that squad
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  Speaker 2: was not here for Don Nelson, and basically Patrick Ewing
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  Speaker 2: and them boys ran him off the job because basically
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: an NBA team decides if you're going to be the
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  Speaker 2: coach and they decided that he was not going to
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  Speaker 2: be the coach and Don Nelson appeared in that moment
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  Speaker 2: to decide if I can at all help it there
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  Speaker 2: will not.
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  Speaker 3: Be a black man on this team taller than me
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  Speaker 3: no there will.
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  Speaker 2: Not no there will not be uh-uh and you got
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  Speaker 2: to understand Don Nelson 6'6 wasn't a short man But
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: you go look at some of those teams in Dallas
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  Speaker 2: and it was like, hey, all the white guys seem
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  Speaker 2: to be taller than the coach or at least in
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  Speaker 2: that ballpark.
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  Speaker 3: Anyway, Dirk Nowitzki, for him, he was like, hell yeah.
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  Speaker 3: There we go. Yes, I've got it.
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  Speaker 2: And he came to the league keeping in mind that,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: you know, it's one of those draft day trades that's
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  Speaker 2: not really a trade. But still, the other pick in
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  Speaker 2: the trade was Robert Tractor-Traylor because there were two trades
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  Speaker 2: in that, like, Jamison and Carter. They got flipped in
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  Speaker 2: that draft. And then we also had this. And the
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  Speaker 2: pick after Dirk, interestingly enough.
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  Speaker 3: Was Paul Pierce. Because this draft is a weird draft.
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  Speaker 3: A really weird draft.
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  Speaker 1: Well, Ola Candy went one. Yes, Mike Bibby two. Bibby
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  Speaker 1: was two. Who was three?
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  Speaker 3: No.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Rafe LaFrance. Rafe. Wow. Another future Nelly special, right? Yep.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Another Nelly guy. And then Jamison and Carter. Remember, that
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was Bonzi Wells went top 10, if I remember correctly, right?
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I think so. Paul Pierce fell in the draft. Jason Williams,
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  Speaker 1: Mike Shoplett, I think he went eight.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to say he went ahead of Paul
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  Speaker 3: Pierce and Dirk.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And the late Tractor Traylor, who was, you know.
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  Speaker 2: No, Tractor Traylor went six. Jason Williams went seven. Larry Hughes,
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  Speaker 2: who was that guy in college, went eight.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 2: Then Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce, followed by Bonzi Wells.
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  Speaker 1: Like you said, weird draft. Like, totally weird draft. And
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: not just in a way of, like, weird draft, as in, okay,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: if we redrafted, it would look different. Of course it
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: would look different. But Paul Pierce being the guy who
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  Speaker 1: fell in large part because Kansas wasn't showing up in
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  Speaker 1: big games back then. You know what I mean? And
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: people thought that Paul Pierce wasn't going to show up
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  Speaker 1: in big games. And he wasn't showing up. Hey, man,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: you in shape enough to really be.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Able to play? And my understanding was that he was
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: not exactly getting glowing recommendations from Roy Williams.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, well, sure. Wait, Rafe LaFrance won $ 3, 000
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  Speaker 1: as teammate. But we can all see.
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  Speaker 3: Two things.
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  Speaker 2: One, Rafe did get glowing recommendations from Roy Williams. And
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  Speaker 2: number two, college Rafe LaFrance was a beast.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, that Kansas team was like, and I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: know we like, like somehow we wound up here, but
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that Kansas team was a monster.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: I think it never got past Sweet 16.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's crazy. That was like Josh Barnes, the point guard, and.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Paul and Ray.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jacques was in the early run of it, but
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: it's Ray for Francis, Paul, it's really Ray for Francis,
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Paul Pierce is all, it is really, that's, that's, That's
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  Speaker 2: all we really need to talk about.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, just like you said. And that
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was the first post-Jorton, you know, sort of, Mike's about
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: to retire. This league is about to look different. Yes.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Sort of thing. And in comes this seven-foot guy that
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: we never, there's no archetype for at that particular point. Like,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that's the crazy part of all this.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: And they're telling us he doesn't play at all in
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  Speaker 2: the post.
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 3: He don't go in there. That's not what this is.
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  Speaker 2: He is a seven foot tall, small forward. was what
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: they were selling us at the time. Like the idea
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  Speaker 2: of him as a power forward didn't come around until later.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: And the other thing with Dirk was it. This did
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: not take off immediately. He was 19 years old. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: keeping in mind at that point, when you're drafting a
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: guy who's 19 years old, The rest of the league
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: is much older than two. There's just a lot fewer
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: young guys that are in the league. So he's 19
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  Speaker 2: years old coming from a country that don't really play
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: basketball like that. Like Germany is not a basketball hotbed
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: by any stretch of the imagination. Man, these numbers from
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: his rookie year and it was a 50 game season.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: He played 47 games, shot 40% from the floor, 20%
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  Speaker 2: from three and average eight points a game, 3.4 rebounds
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  Speaker 2: a game in 20.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: Minutes a game. There were not that many causes for
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: optimism when it came to Rookie Dirk.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Well, you also have to back this up a little
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: bit further because the 90s Dallas Mavericks is a completely different, like,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the way, completely different organization the way we think of them. Like,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: the way that they sit in basketball now, even with
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: the post-Luka drip that they get and the way that
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: people look at them as a laughingstock now is a
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: completely different way that they were looked at as a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: laughingstock back then. Like, they were just Two years removed
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: from everybody believing that Jimmy Jackson and Jason Kidd were
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: dating Tony Braxton at the same time. Like, that was
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: the most interesting thing about that team. Something that I've
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: been told by both men individually.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Did not happen.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Never.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Happened okay that.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Rumor was everywhere dog that rumor made it into.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Sports illustrated like it was just there that the whole
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: team now we know enough about jason kidd now to
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: know anything could have broke up a team with jason
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: kidd on it but at that time and she she
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: she played into it yeah she she was like shit
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: i can sell some records why it.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Is like remember the name of her album was called secrets.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Secrets Because remember, that first record, she had the shortcut
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: and she was a little bit modest with it. That
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: second record, she put on that little bob wig and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: had on the white jumpsuit in the video.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: That was where it was you moving right there.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Hey, in the words of Holly said, nah, she had
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that shit on. She did.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: She did.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: People like, yo, you seen that Tony Braxton video? Because
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: you was in middle school. I was a senior in
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: high school. Right before that, I was like, yo, you
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: seen that Tony Braxton video? But the evolution of the Mavericks,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: also easy for people to forget that they were seen
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: as like the ideal expansion franchise. In the 80s, they
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: got good and stayed good. They were playing in conference finals.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: They had multiple all-stars. on the team, and then when
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: the wheels came off, they were the worst. They were
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: as bad as I can remember a team ever being.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Ever, ever, ever. They were like Charlotte Hornets 2012-13 bad.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: For like four years. Yeah, yeah. And they didn't, Jamal
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Bashburn was not a bad draft pick. Jason Kidd was
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the right draft pick.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Jackson wasn't a bad draft pick.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: He wasn't a bad draft pick. And then you put
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: those three guys together. In theory, you get the guy
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: who's the shooter. You get the guy who's the slasher.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: You get the guy who puts it all together as
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the point guard. Jason Kidd went somewhere. Jamal Mashburn went
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: to Miami. And they had to start from scratch. And
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: then you're starting from scratch with no identity. And then
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you draft this dude. And then you still got Steve
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Nash sitting over there.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: But yeah, remember, this is part of that Don Nelson,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: no black guys taller than me. You remember when he
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: got that job, he was talking all that shit. We
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: old school over here, right?
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Like, the Knicks job really, really affected him. And so.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Dirk was part of the changes that they were going
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: to make. So Ricky Dirk didn't have it. Year two Dirk,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: hey buddy, we're cooking with gas. Now we're scoring 17
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: points a game. Now we're putting up 38, 38% from three.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Now things are different. By year three, Dirk is a
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: third team all NBA guy, right? He hasn't made the
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: all-star team yet, but he's a third team NBA guy
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: and they're winning 50 games. Like they won 50 games
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: in his third year. This gets to rolling. And you
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: mentioned Nash. When did they send Nash to Phoenix? Because
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: they sent Nash to Phoenix for Michael Finley.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Right. Well, it's funny. Nash started off.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Nash was there when Dirk got there. Right. Right. Because
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: they both had the same press conference together. That's right.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: They had the French tips. Well, one of them had
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the French tips. Yes. Maybe both of them did, right? But, yeah,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: he was in Phoenix playing behind Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: which is, like, that's the greatest three-point guard triumvirate in
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: NBA history at the same time. And then he goes there,
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: and once he gets going, you got to remember... Dirk
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: played 47 games in that lockout-shortened season. That was a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: lot of games in a very little period of time.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: You didn't have a lot of time to practice or
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: figure it out. You're 18 playing against these grown men.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: That was bound to happen. But like you said, once
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the year three got going, the numbers were better. I
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: don't think they made it out of the first round
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: until 2001. But you could see that they were coming.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: And Dirk, once Dirk started to really put it together,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I don't know if he'd win a
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: championship with this guy, but he's a guy that we
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: can really start building him. Think about the power force
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: that he was having to play on a nightly basis
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: in the West. Karl Malone was the MVP in 99.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: He was still a reasonably effective player. Rasheed in Portland.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Chris Webber. Kevin Garnett. Kevin Garnett. Timmy. Those are six dudes.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Just six in the West. So you're playing 35 games
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: a year against those dudes. and you can't even bang back.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Enough ill-equipped in every way however none of them can
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: guard you right like the thing with dirt and i'd
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: be curious to know how we would have treated this
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: in real time now because by year three dirk was
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: also turning into a bit of an advanced stats monster
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: um It's interesting to look back at his career and realize,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: and for me, this is a thing I point to
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: a lot. The number one predictor of MVP is win
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: shares for 48 minutes. And those two years when Steve
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Nash won the MVP, people talk about the first year
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Shaq should have won it, right? And then that second
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: year that, what's his name? Kobe should have won it.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: But the guy that led both of those years was
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: actually Dirk Nowitzki. Like he had become a better player
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: than I think we had realized. And for whatever reason,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: we typically give people credit for putting losers on their
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: backs and taking them to places they weren't going. And
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: somehow with Dallas, which really didn't have that many other
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: dudes like Michael Finley.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: OK, right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: The version of Steve Nash that they eventually got back
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: for Phoenix.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: He came with Michael Finley, not Finley. But anyway, those
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: guys were OK.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: But this was this was a bit more of a
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: one man band that I think we gave gave it
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: credit for. And I think it's just simply because he
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: arrived with such a level of skepticism and we kept
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: that skepticism up. Also, Mark Cuban comes in to this
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: around 2001 or two somewhere in there. And so now
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: everything around the Mavericks feels different. But they had an
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: honest-to-God superstar that was doing honest-to-God superstar things that, for
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: whatever reason, we did not really think of as an
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: honest-to-God superstar. And when you look back at his career
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: into the path of getting to 06, it really is
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: the path of a superstar making that climb. Because the
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Spurs were the guys they had to go up against, right?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: And that's who they were dealing with going up along
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: the way. And they took their L's before they got there.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Dude, you touched on so much. Like, for one, just
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the archetype of, and I wasn't an MVP voter in 2006.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I was in college. But the way that we framed
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: what MVPs were, I am a person who believes Steve
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Nash earned both of them MVPs, right? 2005, he changed
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the league. He took the Suns from, what, 32 wins
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to 60. And the only change was changing Stephon Marbury
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: to Steve Nash. Yeah, it's kind of going to be
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: an MVP.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: See the argument.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That's it. And then in 2006, you lose Amari Stoudemire,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: who was their advanced stats guy in finisher and everything else.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: You lose him for the whole season because he had
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: microfracture surgery. And you go from 62 wins to 56 wins.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And you don't really change them. Maybe there's a Boris
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Diaw who plays a little bit more and Sean Marion
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: who does a little bit more. But Steve Nash is
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the guy there, and he scores more.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And remember, it's Boris Diaw, but because they traded Joe Johnson,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that was a sign-in trade.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: It was understood that that was not a fair swap.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Right, right. You lose Joe Johnson. I think I want
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to say who led the league in threes that year before. Like,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that was Joe Johnson who was catching and shooting, not
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Joe Johnson who was doing ISO Joe back then. Like,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it was a completely different way. And yet, and to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: your point, we seem to be stuck on Shaq should
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: have won MVP when Shaq wasn't even Shaq no more.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And Kobe Bryant, God rest his soul, led a team
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: to a remarkable 47 wins. Right. We don't. Now, maybe
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: if people knew that Russell Westbrook was going to win
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the MVP in 2017, because God forbid we had to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: give it to him because of our infatuation with the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: number 10. Yes. Then maybe we would have given Kobe
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a lifetime achievement MVP in 2006 or whatever it was.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But your point about Dirk Stans, it is the fact
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that we didn't respect the way that he kicked it.
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: We did not believe that what he was doing was
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: something that was sustainable and it could be validated in
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: the playoffs. That's why the two series that we're talking about,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I think, are going to be so... I think when
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I tell you that they're like the turning points in
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: NBA history... Like, both of them. They bookend in a
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: certain way. It starts something and it kind of finishes something. Like,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: you'll see what I'm talking about. But yeah, it starts,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: it's 2006 starts some shit. In 2005, Dirk put up
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: 26.1 points, 9.7 rebounds.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: A block and a half and a steal again, by
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: the way. 40% from three. Third in the MVP voting.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: And Like your third best player is Josh Howard.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: You're getting into like Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Eric Dampierre,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: there must have been no big white guys left. Keith
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Van Horn, right? Like this was, he was this guy
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: and they only got to the second round, okay? Like
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I think that's important to note, but they won 58
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: games that year. But the playoffs, it was 03, that's right,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: 03 is when they ran up against the Spurs and
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: got to the conference finals and gotten.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: All the way.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: But let's think about this for a second, what we're
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: talking about. 24-year-old Dirk Nowitzki got them. They ended that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: Sacramento shit, right? Beat them in the second round. and
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: they got there against the 0-3 Spurs, right, who had
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: just beaten the round before it had ended the Showtime Lakers.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Like, Dirk was doing the thing. They won 60 games
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: in 0-3.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And here's the other part. I don't know if you
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: remember this, and tell me if I'm wrong, wasn't that
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: the series that Dirk got hurt in the Western Conference Finals?
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: I think you're right.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And he didn't, they held him out. Because in also
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: in 2003, that was the end of the Sacramento. That
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: was Chris Webber tearing his knee up. I want to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: say in game four of that series. So they all
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: were starting to sort of it was all starting to
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: book in at a point. Like that was the Nick
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Van Exel series where Nick had scored like 40 in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: two games in that series off the bench. Like Dallas
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: looked like, okay, the Lakers ain't going to be here.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And we're not really sure about this Spurs thing because
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the Spurs had not won since 99 in that lockout season.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: So we weren't sure that the Spurs were going to
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: win three, four, five championships. There was reasonable expectation that
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the Mavericks could at least wind up being there. And
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: then I want to say Dirk hurt his knee early
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in that series and Nelly held him out for the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: rest of the way because he didn't want to take
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: any chances on this young stud doing it. And San
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Antonio goes on and wins the championship and everything else.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: And that was as close as they had gotten for
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a while. Yeah.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, look, by now, Dirk has the Mavericks as
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: a consistent 50 or maybe 60 win team. it's easy
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to forget this. They got there. They were that. They
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: were like that, you know? And then we get to
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: that 06 season. Another year where they won 60 games.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: They'd done that weird thing the year before where they
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: gave Avery Johnson the job and took it from Don Nelson,
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: which Don Nelson never got over. It becomes a very
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: important data point later in this story. But, hey, man,
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: that 06 team was good, and they took out the
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Spurs and the Suns. on the way to the NBA
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Finals that year. And Dirk, again, Dirk did not win
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: MVP this year, but he did put up 26.6, nine boards,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: couple of assists, and 90% from the free throw line, 40%
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: from three, 48% from the field on a team where, again,
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Marquise Daniels was number four in minutes played on that team.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Doug Christie was number six. in minutes played on that team.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: This was not a great– Jason Terry's number two. This
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: is not a great top-to-bottom team.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on. I don't remember Doug Christie playing on
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the 06 mat.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: 35-year-old Doug Christie.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: My brain is broken. I do not– I don't remember
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: anything with Doug Christie past him punching Rick Fox on
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the chin. Oh, hold on.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: My fault. He only played seven games for him.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay. That'll do it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Adrian Griffin.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: How did that?
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: That sound more familiar?
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Yes. Yes. Yes. That rings a bell. The crazy thing,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: like you said, Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Terry, Avery Johnson as
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a head coach. Also remember this. They beat the Spurs
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: in a game seven in overtime on the road as
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: a defending champion and put them out. And those are
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the type of series that you look at when we
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: looked at Dirk in 07, in 08, and even 09
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: when he had that failure against Denver, I want to say,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: in the first round. We forgot that 06, he kind
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of got over the hump. Like usually, in the same
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: way that LeBron got over the hump against the Celtics
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: in 11, and then we forgot that he got over
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: the hump because he had the meltdowns. There's like steps forward,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: then steps back. But I thought to that point, Dirk
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: had conquered The dragon, he slayed the beast.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Well, he had, right, in a way.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: And by the way, important to note about San Antonio,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: the way it went for San Antonio, and I even
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: said this to Bruce Bowen's face, if they were going
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: to lose the series, they were going to lose it immediately.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Beating San Antonio in seven, that was a thing, right?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: To get that done, they get to the finals against
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: that version of the Heat, which was this weird, never
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: has a team been built for one year, quite like
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: that team was.
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: They felt like the 1997 Florida Marlins.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: We just go get a bunch of dudes that used
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: to be good at some point. Maybe a couple of
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: them are a little bit good right now.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: And let's just see how it goes. Right. Fire the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: coach to start the year. Everything else. Let's just see
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: how it goes.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: OK, the Mavericks are up in that series to after
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: winning the first two games in Dallas handily.
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: They're up. At the end of this.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Game, to go up 3-0, Gary Payton hits this shot
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: to tie the game at the end of regulation.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Was it regulation or did he.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Put him up? No, no, no. Game five was overtime.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Game three, he hit the shot to put him up two.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: I think the game was tied at like 97. Yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: he put him up two.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: It looked like that series was about to be easily
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: the Mavericks.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: They didn't win another game.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: And the crazy thing was, That was the series where
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Mark Cuban yells out, yells at David Stern, your league
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: is rigged after Dwyane Wade goes to the line a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: million times in game five. That was another overtime game.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Like game three, to have a 13-point lead now feels like,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, 13-point lead is like a five-point lead. But
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to have a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: an NBA Finals game back then felt like you were
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: up 30. Because there was no abundance of a three-point shot.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: And like you said, that team had old Antoine Walker,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: who was only 29, but it felt like Antoine Walker
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was 35, right? Alonzo Mourney, 35. Back end of Shaq.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Back end of Jason Williams. Back end of Gary Payton.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Young Udonis Haslam. What is it? Udonis Haslam never been
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a young dude on some team. All right, cool. He's
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the young guy there.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: But even then, that was six years out of college.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Right, right. He was like 27 or something like that.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Damn near. And Dwayne Wade.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: James Posey, forgot about, wasn't he on that team?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yep, James Posey was on that team. And Dwayne Wade
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: walked down the Dallas Mavericks after being down 2.7 games
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to nothing. That ain't two games to nothing. That's like
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: 2.9 games to nothing at that point. And you don't
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: win another game. And thus, that starts what we are
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: confirming about Dirk. Ah, man, look at him. He too soft.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: They can't get it right.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Let us throw in an important detail about that series
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: that no Mavericks fan would allow us to ignore, which
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: is their belief that they were playing eight on five
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: in those games because Dwayne Wade was living at the
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: free throw line, just throwing himself into the lane, and
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: they were calling it.
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: But the thing was, most of those were fouls.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: He was that quick. Like, the one thing, and I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: was going back and looking at the series, and I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: was like, man, he looked so much faster back there
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: in 2006. And they had the stoppers, like Adrian Griffin
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was the guy who was supposed to be stopping him.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Devin Harris, guy who was supposed to be stopping him. Like,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: they had defenders, like you said, Marquise Daniels, Josh Hart,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: all those guys, and he kept getting his shoulder, and
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: they kept having to foul him. Yeah. Like, I looked
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: at that one foul, the only foul that I thought,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: was a little weird, was the foul that sent Dwyane
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Wade to the line at the end of game five.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Where he literally drove through everybody and just flipped up something.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And maybe he got clipped on a leg or whatever
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: it was, but it didn't look like he really got fouled. Now, granted,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I ain't got the Zapruder film or nothing like that.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: But that was the one that I was like, yeah,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that one, dog. And he was, look,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: people talk about Shea going to the line. Brother... I
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: don't know how that compares to what the way people
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: feel about 2006.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Boy, that was, we talked about that for a very
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: long time, but we were this close to the anointment
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: of Dirk Nevesi. And instead, it became Dwayne Wade, who
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: was that guy. And coming up next, we're going to
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: get to the 2011 finals. But for those of you
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: who weren't there, buddy, a lot happened in between and
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: not a lot of it was good for Dirk. The
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  Speaker 2: All right, back with Vinny Goodwill talking about the Dirk
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Nowitzki era in Dallas. 2007, we can just say this
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: really quick. The Mavericks were the best team in the NBA.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Dirk Nowitzki was the best player in the NBA that season.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: But we never talk about the idea that Dirk might
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: have been the best player in the NBA.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: But I told you, the three straight years of.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Leading the league in win shares for 48 minutes, that's
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: what the best player in the NBA does.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Like that's, there's a, looking back on it, there's a
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: strong argument there. Like who's better, KG or Dirk Nowitzki?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: There's a strong argument now separated from the moment. It's
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: a little easier to look at it and be like, yo,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I think it might've been Dirk Nowitzki, except they lost
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: in the first round of the Warriors. who were coached
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: by Don Nelson, who was super salty about what had happened.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't just that they lost, Vinny. It was
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: the way that they lost, which was that band of
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: rapscallions that the Warriors had. Steven Jackson, Baron Davis, Al Harrington,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: Matt Barnes. And they basically just punked Dirk for the
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: whole series. And Dirk did not, this is every time
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: you show me a big man that don't have a
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: post game, it's like, if you don't have a post game,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: there's no advantage to you being big.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: And he could never punish them.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: So they were just guarding him with 6'5 guys who
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: were just getting in under his shoulders, and there was
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: nothing he could do.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: They were punking him, like you said. Nelly made sure,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: we are doing this 6'5 in under league. Okay, Baron Davis,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Jason Richardson, Mikael Petras, then Steven Jackson and Matt Barnes
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and all those dudes. Like, I'm going to take it
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: even a step back to you, Bo. 2006 felt like
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the league legitimately was changing. And if Dirk was the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: best player in the league that had Kobe Bryant at
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: his absolute individual peak, we saw LeBron James get his
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: first taste of the NBA playoffs, that series against Washington
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: where he basically won three games by himself.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: And took Gilbert Arena's heart out his chest at the
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: free throw line.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: You don't hit this, you know what's going to happen.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: You're going home. I ain't never seen Gilbert Arena's brick
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: free throws the way that he, he ain't miss them.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: He bricked the free throws down. at the crib, and
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: he said, I'm going to pass it to Damon Jones. Wait,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: never mind. No, but just think about that. Like, the
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: best of Kobe Bryant, the best of a young LeBron James,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: who I want to say was second in the league
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: in scoring, might have led the league in scoring like
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: an 08 or whatever it was, but LeBron was coming.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Dwyane Wade was coming. Like, the league was changing. And
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Dirk was at individually the forefront of that and then
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: followed it up with an MVP and had to have
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the MVP awarded to him, not on the floor of
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: American Airlines Arena, whatever the hell it was called then,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: but because they got decisively put out in six. They
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: could have got put out in five, if not for
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: like some miracle stuff that happened in game five at
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: the crib. And I've never seen, I'm trying to think,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: but have you ever seen a team get punked? The
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: way that we saw the old seven Mavericks get punked.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: And they were an excellent team. They were a top
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: five office, top five defense. By this time, Josh Howard
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: is a really good player. They ran through the league
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: that year. They looked like they were taking the step
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: that you make when you've made the finals the year
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: before and it doesn't quite go right. And they had
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: clearly been kind of stair-stepping it up a little bit
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: to get to where they were.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: And we never looked at him. Not never.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: But it took a while for us to ever look
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: at him the same again. And it was really just
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: because those we believe warriors, as they called them, it
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: wasn't just that they beat. It was that particular set
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: of dudes and the way that they got down. And
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: once again, Don Nelson, who seemingly knew, you know, they
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: might be a little soft over there. That team with
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Jerry Stackhouse on it. They might be a little soft
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: over there.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: See what happens. And they did it. They just they
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: just punked him.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: It looked like a team from the suburbs going to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the hood. Yep. And you went to the hood.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: And that team with Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry Stackhouse,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Eric Dampier, it's not like it was one guy. It
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: wasn't even talking about the team. It was just about Dirk,
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: and it was a colossal failure from the best player
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: on the team.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: There's no other way to look at it. He failed them.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: And it was funny because that was at the point–
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: that we could acknowledge, oh, Dirk is the guy. Like,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: he won MVP. His team won, what, 67 games or
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: whatever it was. We were just coming around to saying,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Dirk is it. Dirk is the leader of all this.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Not just in an advanced stats kind of way, but
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the validation of it. Whether they got to the finals
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: or not, I don't know if that had to have happened, right?
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: They could have taken a step back. They took the
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: step back and got punked in a way, I want
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to say, And since the start of seven-game series, they
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: were the first team? In the 1A? They were the first.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: They were the first, right?
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: No, in a seven-game series.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: In a seven-game series, they were the first. Like, 94 Sonics,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: 99 Nixon Heat. Yeah. And then later on, it was
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: the Spurs losing to Memphis, I think, in 2011. Like,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it's funny. The stuff that sticks to people... We don't
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: put 2011 on Tim Duncan or some of the Spurs
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: meltdowns on Timmy the way that we put everything on Dirk.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Dirk catches all the playoff hell.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Now, to be fair, the reason is we thought after
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: 11 that that Spurs thing was over and then they
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: rattled off an incredible three-year run that it's easy to
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: lose sight of because they lost that series to the
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Thunder and then they lost that game six and seven
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: to Miami. But we thought they were finished and they
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: picked that whole thing up with the arrival of Kawhi Leonard,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: which I don't think we emphasized quite enough.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: And that whole thing went on a run. But you're right.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: This stuck to dirt.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: But the reason it stuck is, unlike the Spurs who
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: picked things up on the other end, they went out
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: there and it basically happened again the next year. Now, 08,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: as I recall, was a very interesting year in the
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: West because everybody won 50 games. I'm not mistaken, all
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: eight teams that went to the postseason won 50 games,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: and the separations between them were like a game here
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: and a game there.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: But it was also interesting because the order.
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: Of how they finished did feel like the natural hierarchy
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: of what the league was. It didn't feel like they
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: were all the same level of good, but they were
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: all really bunched up. And I want to say the
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: Mavericks had the 7th seed because they went up against
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: the Hornets.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: That was the Chris Paul year. That's before Chris Paul
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: hurts his knee. Yes.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: And we learned that you give Chris Paul any dude
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: that can jump straight up in the air and he
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: will throw him oops.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Well, they beat the, no, I was going to say,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: they beat the brakes off of Dallas. That was the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: David West, I'm going to touch your chin.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: He walked up on Dirk and touched his face three
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: times while talking to him. And Dirk stood there and
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: listened closely. to every word of it. And I've talked
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: to David about this. I think there was an elbow situation.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: And David West said that he had had enough of that.
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: But that image of Dirk getting his face.
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: Touched, stuck. It's like, damn, y'all got punked again.
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: And then the next year, the part that nobody seems
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: to remember.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I know where you're going. I know where you're going.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: And he would never be allowed to forget right now.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: How many people right now? I would love to know
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: if there was a way that I could get a
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: real-time reaction for the audience of two sets of people. One,
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: people who have no idea what I'm about to mention. Two,
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: or actually like three sets. Two, people who are like,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Feel like I know what he's about to talk about,
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: but I don't know.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: And three people like, oh, snap, I forgot.
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: And so for those of you who don't know, Dirk
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: had fell in love with a scammer.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: An honest to God scammer whom he met because she
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: had been running game on all kinds of athletes. The
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: one that I remember is Tony Banks.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I forgot about that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: That was the one name I remember. But she had
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: this game. And this is before Dirk was showing up
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: to the arena with the plates. We didn't know what
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: the foil wrap plates. We didn't know what Dirk was about, right?
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: The story was that this woman called Dirk and said, oh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: wrong number. I was trying to call my brother. But hey,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: what's your name?
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Dirk?
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: And he went for it. I got so much mileage
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: out of that on the radio, boy. He got, for
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: a while there, it was like, man, that boy messed
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: around and got dirt. He fell in love with an
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: honest guy scammer. Like, she had been, I think she
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: may have had charges. She was stealing jewelry. Like, she
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: was doing all of this. But the world found out
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: about this during the playoffs.
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: I think they found out about it during the Denver,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: was it the Denver series or was it Denver in 10?
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: But I feel like they found about in the first
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: round in 2009. It was in 09.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: It was in 09 because the first round they beat
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: the brakes off the Spurs. That's when the Spurs were
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: in the process of making a transition. They were changing
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: the offense up. They realized they had to add some
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: of that Phoenix stuff, but they ran the Spurs out
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: of there. I can't remember which series it was against
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: the one year the Nuggets did something, but that was
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: hanging in the air the whole time that this woman
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: ran this game on Dirk.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: And what's this man's name? The dude from Germany, the
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: shooting coach?
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Like, all these people are trying to get her out
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: of Dirk's life, but.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Dirk's like, no, but I love her. Like, it was.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: It was... Oh, my... Oh, my God.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: I can say, somehow, that has been completely lost to history.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Nope. That this thing happened. We don't talk about that
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: no more.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I'll just tell you, Dirk was down bad after 06, man.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: Everything was going wrong.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Dirk was the mark.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: Lost in the Lost in the first round. Somebody touching
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: his face. We found out that he lacked discernment.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Dirk was the mark. Like, how do you, how does,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how a woman, like, let's
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: just go back. I got so many questions about how
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: this woman scammed him, right? Like, hey, find a Dirk's number.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Dirk answers the phone of a number he don't know.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know who answers phone calls of numbers that
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: they don't know. But, you know, this is 2008, 2009.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: You know, you just answer the call that's on your screen.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: And then she says that, and you have no, like,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: spidey sense of this. I'm trying to call my brother. Huh,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it's interesting. Your brother has a number that's just like mine,
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: except the number is off. Don't you need to call
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: your brother? No, I'd rather talk to you, Dirk.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: What a lucky day for her.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: What a lucky day for her that the wrong number
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: turns out to be mega millionaire Dirk Nowitzki.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: And by the way, who told her what Dirk liked?
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Or did she just throw it against the wall and
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: just see what might happen?
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: I think there's probably evidence that Dirk had a type before. Yeah,
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: but I don't know.
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: I mean, but you know what, though, man?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: She was in the game like that. So she would,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: you know, she would know the thing. But she made
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: that happen. She eventually went to jail. Here's what Dirk
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: did in that series against Denver, by the way. Do
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: you remember the numbers he put up?
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I don't remember the numbers.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: I do.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I did not remember them exactly, but I remember them generally,
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to read them off to you because
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: this is what's been lost. In the face of all
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: that pressure, in the cauldron of all this embarrassment, people
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: like me laughing at him.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: In front of the world.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: 34.4, 11.6, four assists a game on 53 from the floor,
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: 39 from three, and 92 from the line. In the face,
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: all that dirt soft, all that dirt crumbled under pressure.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: Dirt stood up in that moment. He was like, hey, man,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I can't let her take everything from me, big dog.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: No, and that was a series against Kenyon Martin, if
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: I remember correctly, right? Yes, yes. I remember part of that.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: The only reason, only thing with that series I remember
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: is Dallas was up. in a game, and they were
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: supposed to foul Carmelo late, and they didn't foul him,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: or they didn't foul him hard enough, and he took
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: a three, made a three, and they win the overtime.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: That might have been like game three or something like that.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: Like that was the one year that Denver put it
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: together with Chauncey Bills when Chauncey got traded there for
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Allen Iverson. And that was the year that they made
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: it to the West Pines.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: And all that stuff. And then they went out like
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: some suckers against the Lakers. That last game against that,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: that game six they played against the Lakers, that was
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: a one, two, three, can't cool classic right there.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was, was that the game where your boy
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: Dante Jones was out there trying to trip Kobe?
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: Might have been.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, look, Dante Jones, a Duke guy trying
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: to trip somebody is not like, that's not a unique occurrence.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: So that could have been game four. But I remember
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Kobe put, Kobe be able to like 40, the crowd
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: was cheering for them. And I'm like, this how y'all
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: going out? Like they had a tie series. After the
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: first two games, I never thought they were going to
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: win the series, mind you. But I thought they were
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: going to put up something better. And at that point, Bo,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you're thinking Dallas is one of those teams that will
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: have very good regular seasons but will never, ever, ever
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: put it together to the point that They are anything
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: more than a 50-win team and a playoff nuisance. We
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: thought that they would go the way of the Minnesota
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Timberwolves in the years after Kevin Garnett won the MVP.
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: Like some decent enough regular seasons, but you're not the
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: guy anymore and you can't carry this team beyond anything.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, 2010, they lost in the first round.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Lots of dispersed.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Like it, it felt like it was over, right? Like
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: he had his peak and it was right. Like he's
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: in his early thirties at this point. Like this was
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: at a time where I also think we looked at
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: the early thirties a little bit differently. And this is
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: like decline time, right? Like, Oh man, you guys had
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: your chance. This roster is going to be whatever it was.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: And then came 2011. They won 57 games that year.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Everything in the league that year centered around the Miami Heat.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: If you were not there, guys, there's no way for
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: us to explain to you just how insane things were
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: around that team. They were the lead story on SportsCenter
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: every single day. And the Mavericks, who I want to
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: say were the three seed that year in the playoffs. Buddy,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: they put on a run through the playoffs like we
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: have rarely ever seen.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Again, at a.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: Time where we're not really thinking that this is possible
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: with this set of dudes because their window was closed.
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: It was also a bit of a transitionary year in
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: the West, like the Young Thunder are starting to rise.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: You talked about this earlier. The Spurs were the one seed,
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: but they lost to the Grizzlies. So the one seed
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: was out of there at the end of.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: The first round.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: But In the end, that team ran through the postseason
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: and only lost three games that whole postseason.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: No, I'm going to give you— Hold on.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Ended the Lakers— ended the repeat Lakers situation. Mm-hmm.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: No, think about it like this. Think about— you said about
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: the Heat in 2006, there was never a team made
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: more for one year. And I will present to you
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: these dudes. Because think about the ages of the 2011
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Dallas Mavericks. Dirk is in his early 30s. Jason Terry
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: is in his early 30s. Jason Kidd is in his mid-30s.
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: Peja Stojakovic is on the back end. Sean Marion is
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: on the back end. Karam Butler was there for the
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: start of that and then hurt himself. He was on
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the back end. Deshaun Stevenson. You're thinking of all the names.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Tyson Chandler, right? That was a team that came together,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: and they didn't start off the season like the 94.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Deshaun Stevenson.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Deshaun Stevenson. Like, they didn't start
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: off like the 94 Rockets. You know, they started like, well, 15-0.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: And everybody, people kind of forgot how great they were
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: to some degree, right? This was like that. Everything was
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: centered around, is LeBron and the Heat going to get
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: to the finals and see Kobe and the Lakers? Or
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: see the Thunder? And we didn't think the Thunder were
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: going to get there, but we could entertain the thought.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: But we were thinking Lakers and Heat. Or Lakers or
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: Heat and Spurs or whatever it was. We were not
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: thinking of The ragtag, old-ass Dallas Mavericks. Remember, even in
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: that first-round series against Portland, Brandon Roy had the last
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: great game of his career in a fourth-quarter comeback, and
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: we were like, yep, this is who they are. This
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: is who Dallas is, a team that will never be
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: able to get there, and then they beat the absolute
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: brakes off the Lakers. The breaks, the J.J. Barea getting
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: flung in midair by Andrew Bynum.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: Made Andrew Bynum tap. Like, that was the moment. They
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: fired Phil Jackson. It was so bad, they fired Phil Jackson.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Remember Phil Jackson tried to punch Paul Gasol in the
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: chest or something like that during this? I think I
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: read something like a waltz was trying to wake Paul.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Phil was trying to wake up Paul Gasol. And it
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: was nothing. Like, that was, I want to say, was
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: that the most embarrassing from a performance way? that a
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: champion has ever gone out It's up there.
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: It's up there. Like, it was bad, man.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: Like, it was, they completely slammed the door on the
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: whole era after that game was over, after that was done. Like,
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: they ran through it quietly. The 11 Mavericks, very similar.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: To the 06 Heat.
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: That's what I'm saying.
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: You know, in terms of that construction and everything else.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: And by the way, now they get to play the Heat.
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: And the Heat, I don't know about you. I did
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: not think going into that year that the Heat, I
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: thought the Heat were going to lose in the second
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: round because the weaknesses they had on the roster were
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: at point guard and inside. And I was just like,
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: you're going to get to somebody that's going to do
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: something with that. And I thought it would be Boston
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: in the second round. But then Dwayne Wade popped Rondo's
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: arm out of joint, and they were never the same
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: after that. But the Heat had gone through enough of
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: those challenges. LeBron, I think they won in five against
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: the Bulls, with LeBron really coming up big at the
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: end of games in that series. And it looked like, oh, okay,
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: they're going to make it happen. And the Heat, they
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: left Miami split. Heat won game three in Dallas, up 2-1.
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: And they never won another game. Now, I don't want
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: to make our focus on this on LeBron James because
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: that's the way that everybody looks at that. It was
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: without question the most embarrassing set of circumstances of his life,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: his basketball life at least.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: There's no way around that. But on the other side,
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: there was Dirk. And those boys did it. They got
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: it done.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: It is almost one of those things where, like for one,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Those 2011 playoffs were so rich. I don't think we
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: realized when we were in it. LeBron getting past the Celtics,
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: we thought, okay, he's done it now. They beat the
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Celtics in five, and LeBron put out the Celtics in
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: game five. They were down six in the last few
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: minutes of the game, and LeBron went on a personal journey.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: 10-0 run where he looked bigger than the floor, right?
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know what way to say it, but physically,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: he looked larger than the floor in which he was
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: playing on. And then they go and play Chicago, who
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: had the best record in the league and had the MVP,
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: and LeBron got in that stance and shut the Bulls
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: down or shut Derrick Rose down in the last five
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: minutes virtually of every one of those games. There was
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: no reason to believe going into that series. Even after
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: game two, where Miami led by 15 points and Dwyane
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Wade hit a quarter three in front of Dallas' bench
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and LeBron started premature celebrating, it wasn't until then where
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: you felt like Dallas woke up. And Dallas legitimately woke
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: up in that moment, up fit, down 15. It was
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: like they were exercising the demons of 2006. They came
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: back and won that game. I want to say Dirk
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: hit the game winner. I want to say he spun
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: around Udonis or spun around Bosh. for a game winning
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: lefty layup. And then they just, game three happened, right?
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Chris Bosh hit the baseline jumper on the right side
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: to win game three, but it never felt like Miami
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: got in front of that series. It never, it felt
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: like Dallas was in control and it was going to
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: be a matter of time. Even the game, Dirk got sick.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Don't forget, speaking of sick, the Dwayne Wade, fake cough,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: walking in the arena, mocking the idea. Um, that Dirk
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: was sick because little did we know because we didn't
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: think about it that much. There was a real live
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: robbery going on there. Dirk and Dwayne did not like
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: each other. They had the finals that had gone on before.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: Like this, this had been a thing. There was quiet
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: beef that people didn't really know. And it's funny hearing
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: them talk about it later where they're.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: Both like, yeah, yeah, I didn't really, I didn't really
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: like him.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't rock with him at all. Yeah.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: And the thing about it is two guys that everybody likes, right? Like,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: people loved Dwayne Wade. People loved Dirk. They did not
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: like each other.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: The coughing, like, to me, and think about it, we
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: put so much of that on LeBron. When it was
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: Dwayne who was actually the one that was doing most
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: of the instigating, and we talk about it a little bit,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: that series, if Dwayne Wade, if the Heat win that series,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: We look at Dwayne Wade totally different because that's a
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: second finals MVP. That's four rings, you know, arguably four rings,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: two finals MVPs. Who knows how you move as far
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: as your relationship with LeBron if you take that step
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: back and everything else. Like, it took for Dallas to
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: win that series. I don't think that he gave it away.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: I think Dallas took it from him. And we got
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: to give Dallas a lot of credit because they just
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: came in waves.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: Dwayne was balling.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: He was brilliant.
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Look, Dwayne Wade, whole 2011 season, homeboy Hall of Fame, right?
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: Because he sat up there with LeBron. LeBron was using
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Dwayne like them cats be using their children. Come with
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: me to every press conference, right?
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: Maybe this will make things.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: A little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was basically it, right? But Dwayne did that
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: for him.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: And then with LeBron coming up short in the finals,
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: Dwayne was coming up strong at every turn.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Like, think about, think about In fact, I don't even
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: know how to imagine it.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: What would we have done if they had won a
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: championship and Dwayne was MVP and LeBron had played as
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: poorly as he had? It would not have saved LeBron
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: because I think we still would have been on him
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: in the ways that we had, but he still made
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: it so much easier for him And Dirk snatched that
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: whole thing away. And by the end, had America on
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: his side. And then we had to look up and
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: be like, damn, I guess Dirk ain't soft, huh?
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: Remember that?
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Remember we used to say Dirk was soft? We were
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: just saying it the year before. He washed everything away.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I always say, is it him or is it Paul Pierce?
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: I think it may be Dirk, where that one ring
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: did more for their future reputation. Because to me, the
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: ring helped us put Paul Pierce in a place that
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: he would not have been otherwise. But with Dirk, it
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: put him into a place that looking back on it,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: he should have been.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: No, no. I'll take it a step further. 2008 put
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: Paul Pierce in a place like, oh, man, he really
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: is good. But we never thought that much of you
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: to begin with to some degree. Right. 2011 saved Dirk
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: from the abyss. Dirk was in the abyss. Like, they
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: rose to the same place, but Dirk had a much
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: further way to go in terms of public perceptions. Because
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: he was thought of very highly in 2007. He won
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: the MVP, and then he lose, then he lose, then
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: he lose. It's like, man, Dirk is an afterthought. And
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: then if you put out in that year, you put
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: out Kobe and the Lakers, and Kobe was still Kobe, right? Like,
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: he was still a reasonable version of himself in 2011.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: You put out Kobe. Then you put out the Young Thunder. Remember,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: the Young Thunder won game one of that series, and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: then you walked them down four in a row. And
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: then you put out LeBron and Wade and Bosh. When
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: you talk about one-year runs or however you want to
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: put it, whatever skins you got on your playoff wall,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know if there's anybody that's got a one-year
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: run of playoff skins on the wall the way that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: Dirk has those playoff skins. Nobody.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: And look, man, in all of this, we have to
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: keep this in mind, involves stereotypes, right? So, like, 07
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: would have been like, what if a black person was
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: supposed to go get a Nobel Prize in But he
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: missed it because he was late.
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: And the reason that he.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Was late is because he was over there with a
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: 40 ounce and a slice of watermelon. And he just
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: could not tear himself away from those Negro treats. A
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: slice of watermelon.
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: That's what it was like the way that Dirk lost
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: in 07, right?
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Like he lost in the most stereotypical fashions. All those years,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: it was all just in the most stereotypical fashions you
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: could imagine.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: All the way down to this dude from another country.
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: He don't know shit. He got scaled. Like all of it.
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: Every single bit of it was just like this stereotype.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Central casting. Central casting, dog.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: That's it. Every single bit of it, man.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: And now.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: People raise the question as to whether or not Dirk
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Nowitzki is one of the 20 best players in the
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: history of the NBA, which, by the way.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: Is not as crazy as it sounds.
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: When you go back and look at a bit of it, 20, look,
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of dudes that haven't played in the NBA, right?
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: But he is an upper echelon, all-time great, and I contend,
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: perhaps more beloved as the face of a franchise than
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: any franchise's face of the franchise is.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: Hmm. Like, it's tough.
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: They love him down there, man.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: It's funny. I remember... Because this was right around the
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: time that me and you got cool. So, like, the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: trick for Bo's Morning Jones was... This is funny. You
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: would do three hours, right?
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And after the first hour was finished, like, it would
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: upload or download or whatever it was. So if I'm
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: on a plane... you could be on hour two and
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: I'm listening to hour one on a flight or something
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: like that, like on my Blackberry. This will show you
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: how long ago it was. And I want to say
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: you brought up before the 2011 finals, you said Dirk
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: Nowitzki is one of the 20 best players in the
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: history of the NBA. And I'm like, man, I just
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: met Bo, but I wanted to ask him, is he high? Like,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: I was literally thinking, I was like, and then once
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: it happened, I was like, oh yeah, he kind of fits.
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: It's one of those things that you think about, but
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: when you go down the list of the players that
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: he's with, like the tier of players that he's with,
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: he belongs somewhere between 18 and 25, right? Yeah.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: It's there.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: Like I say, as we look back on it, you
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: couldn't trust Kevin Garnett to go win the game.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: For you No.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: You can trust Dirk to do that. And Kevin Garnett
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: is an all-time great player, right? But Kevin Garnett is
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: a role player in a superstar's talent, right? He's a
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: superstar caliber role player, and that is not an insult
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: to anybody that's out here. Like, Kevin Garnett getting to
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: Boston and being like, I'm the number three is the
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: point that I'm making, right? Like, he had a team
• 59:31
  Speaker 2: where he could be the leader in the way he
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: needed to be the leader without you asking him to
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: do things that weren't necessarily what you needed.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: But I do believe.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: There's a tier that you can't quite get to if
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: you're not the guy that we give the ball to
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: when it's there to make it happen. Unless you Bill Russell, right?
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: Like there's a place you probably can't get. Dirk could
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: get to that place. And Dirk consistently got his teams
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: to these places, obviously, except for the times that he didn't.
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: But he did it.
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: And they were America's basketball team after they won that.
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: They had the championship celebration in Miami at Live where
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: Cuban just sent him a million dollars and said, we
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: pulling up.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: They partied. in they city, all over them.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Pulling up at your trap, taking over your trap. Yes. Yes.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, the heat, by then, the heat tapped. They
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: made the heat tap.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: I think you look at playoff basketball, maybe we don't
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: do a good enough job explaining, like, not stamina in
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: terms of like a physical stamina or even like a
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: mental stamina, like an emotional stamina. that you have to
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: have in going through this. At some point, you're just like,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: this is enough. Like, we're not going to do this.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: They have it more than us. Y'all got it. And
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: it looked like that's what the Heat said. Y'all got it.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't any one player. Like, LeBron was just
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: in his head. And that was the J.J. Barea series
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: where he couldn't back down J.J. Barea, even though it
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: might have been a grand total of like three plays.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: And we just turned that one vision into into, man,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: LeBron ain't got no post game, which he didn't have.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: But you know what I mean? Like we turned that into,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: we extrapolate that the same way that we extrapolated on Dirk.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: It was like they reversed roles. Dirk and LeBron were
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: first roles from 2006 to 2011. And if it was
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: one person who understood, oh, he's curling up, We got
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: to take advantage here. It was Dirk Nowitzki. He knew
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: what time it was because he was that man on
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the other side not five years ago. And if he
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: think about this, what would we think of Dirk if
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: they didn't win in 2011? Right.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: What would we say about his career now?
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: Like he would be in the tier where he got
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: to the finals, which is very important. So that keeps
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: him out of the James Harden tier. And for those
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: of you, James Harden went to the finals in 2012,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: not the same and you know it.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Not the same, and you know it. And by the way,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: he'd have been better off if he hadn't gone. Everybody
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: would have been happier if he hadn't gone to the
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: 2012 finals, except for the Miami Heat.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: They were glad.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: And some people on South Beach.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was about to say, club owners are probably
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: very glad that James Harden was... Boy, that career is
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: going to be hilarious to look back on. But no, man,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: this was the one, man. I have had a good
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: time with this one. Vinny Goodwill, check him out on ESPN,
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: covering the NBA. And you get to watch the NBA
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: finals or cover the NBA finals while also sleeping in
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: your own bed for much of the time.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know about that because with the World Cup happening,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I might have to get a hotel a little bit
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: closer to Madison Square Garden because I'm not trying to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: get caught in this gridlock. Oh, damn.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: I hadn't even thought about that.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: Told you you didn't have to live in no damn
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: New Jersey.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Bo.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: on The Right Time. We do this four days a week.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: Ryan Brumley, head of everything behind the scenes.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line, 323-596-7767. Remember, follow
• 1:02:57
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• 1:03:00
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• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.