# Vinnie Goodwill on Why Dirk’s 2011 Title Run Changed Everything about his Legacy | 06.02

An episode of [The Right Time with Bomani Jones](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/982639043), 2 Jun 2026, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/370fc844-36bd-4f61-8b8f-b4bb010de39a/a526f3e1-c05e-4003-9609-b4bb0112c0f4/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=919a7cbe-003c-4146-b592-b4bb010de3a5

Bomani Jones and Vinnie Goodwill go back to the two NBA Finals that defined Dirk Nowitzki’s career: 2006 and 2011. They break down how Dirk changed the league, why the “soft” label followed him for years, how the We Believe Warriors loss stuck to him, and why that 2011 championship run completely changed the way we talk about his legacy. If you remember Dwyane Wade living at the line, the fake cough, the Heatles pressure cooker, and Dallas finally getting its revenge, this is the full Dirk story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[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
[0:37] 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
[0:59] 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
[1:07] Speaker 2: it one-dimensional just because of what happened in 2011, but
[1:11] Speaker 2: his whole career, like, you tell me if I'm wrong here,
[1:15] 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,
[1:22] Speaker 2: Akeem Olajuwon had come before him, for example. So he's
[1:24] Speaker 2: not like he's the first international player, but he didn't
[1:28] Speaker 2: play American college ball. And you tell me if I'm wrong,
[1:31] Speaker 2: I would argue of those guys, even if you're talking
[1:34] Speaker 2: about Drazen Petrovic, any of them, nobody felt like he
[1:38] Speaker 2: had more of a European game than Dirk Nowitzki did.
[1:43] Speaker 2: And I don't mean, and at that time, that wasn't
[1:45] Speaker 2: that complimentary.
[1:46] Speaker 1: No, it wasn't a compliment. It was, like, remember Barkley
[1:50] Speaker 1: saying all this stuff about Golden State before Golden State
[1:52] 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?
[2:02] Speaker 1: He would say the exact same thing. And also, remember,
[2:04] 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
[2:12] 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
[2:18] 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.
[2:31] 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
[2:40] Speaker 1: high release, that level of touch. Young Dirk with that
[2:44] Speaker 1: level of, you know, mobility as much as mobility as
[2:46] 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.
[3:17] Speaker 1: But to have that be the way that you built
[3:19] 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.
[3:27] 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
[3:46] Speaker 2: wanted to try and experiment with. Sometimes at the expense
[3:50] Speaker 2: of actually winning basketball games.
[3:53] Speaker 1: Right.
[3:53] Speaker 2: Like it's I think he retired at the all time
[3:56] Speaker 2: winning his coach in NBA history. Nobody thought of him
[3:59] 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.
[4:04] Speaker 2: And the fact that he just kind of like fucking
[4:06] Speaker 2: around and see what can happen. And I think a
[4:08] Speaker 2: very important part of the Don Nelson fucking around. There
[4:11] Speaker 2: was a seven footer shooting threes that we don't talk
[4:14] Speaker 2: about as much because he wasn't seven foot.
[4:17] Speaker 3: He was seven six and his name was Manu Bowe.
[4:21] Speaker 2: Don Nelson have a new ball standing a zillion feet
[4:23] Speaker 2: away from the basket on one end of the floor
[4:25] Speaker 2: and blocking shots on the other. And it seemed like
[4:29] Speaker 2: a gimmick, but it actually turned out to be a
[4:31] Speaker 2: glimpse into the future.
[4:32] Speaker 3: And Nelson.
[4:34] Speaker 2: Always I felt like had an eye towards that sort
[4:36] Speaker 2: of European game of this idea. We're going to have
[4:38] Speaker 2: a bunch of guys that can shoot and face the basket.
[4:41] Speaker 2: And when you get to 98, when he gets him now,
[4:44] Speaker 2: he's finally.
[4:45] Speaker 3: Got his guy. But I do think the part of
[4:47] Speaker 3: this that.
[4:47] Speaker 2: We, we forget at this point is Nelly had been
[4:50] Speaker 2: tinkering with this for a very long time.
[4:52] Speaker 1: No. And I'll take you back further than when Luke Bowe,
[4:55] 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,
[5:09] Speaker 1: those teams that the Sidney Moncriefs and Terry Cummings, when
[5:12] Speaker 1: he was there for a few years.
[5:13] Speaker 3: Paul Pressey is point forward.
[5:15] Speaker 1: Right.
[5:16] Speaker 3: Marcus Johnson, I guess, ahead of that.
[5:18] Speaker 1: Right. And Jack Sigma was there with that funky high release,
[5:22] 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
[5:27] Speaker 1: game face in the room, 15, 16 feet out, and
[5:30] Speaker 1: then start to take it back a little bit further.
[5:33] Speaker 1: So before that, if you even if you thought Maloubo
[5:36] Speaker 1: was a gimmick right it was evidence that he had
[5:39] 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
[5:48] Speaker 1: after Pat Riley was after Pat Riley left and he
[5:51] Speaker 1: was trying that stuff there but that just wasn't the
[5:53] Speaker 1: place to do it and that wasn't the team to
[5:55] Speaker 1: do it with at that.
[5:57] Speaker 2: Time well I also think that that Ties into what
[6:00] Speaker 2: we're going to talk about with Dirk, because one thing
[6:02] 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,
[6:09] Speaker 2: this is after Pat Riley leaves, they hired Don Nelson,
[6:11] Speaker 2: who's a big-name coach, big-name hire, and the problems were
[6:15] Speaker 2: not on-court issues. They were off-court issues, and that squad
[6:19] Speaker 2: was not here for Don Nelson, and basically Patrick Ewing
[6:22] 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
[6:27] Speaker 2: coach and they decided that he was not going to
[6:29] Speaker 2: be the coach and Don Nelson appeared in that moment
[6:33] Speaker 2: to decide if I can at all help it there
[6:36] Speaker 2: will not.
[6:37] Speaker 3: Be a black man on this team taller than me
[6:41] Speaker 3: no there will.
[6:42] Speaker 2: Not no there will not be uh-uh and you got
[6:45] 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
[6:51] Speaker 2: and it was like, hey, all the white guys seem
[6:53] Speaker 2: to be taller than the coach or at least in
[6:55] Speaker 2: that ballpark.
[6:56] Speaker 3: Anyway, Dirk Nowitzki, for him, he was like, hell yeah.
[6:59] Speaker 3: There we go. Yes, I've got it.
[7:03] 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
[7:07] Speaker 2: not really a trade. But still, the other pick in
[7:11] Speaker 2: the trade was Robert Tractor-Traylor because there were two trades
[7:15] Speaker 2: in that, like, Jamison and Carter. They got flipped in
[7:19] Speaker 2: that draft. And then we also had this. And the
[7:22] Speaker 2: pick after Dirk, interestingly enough.
[7:24] Speaker 3: Was Paul Pierce. Because this draft is a weird draft.
[7:27] Speaker 3: A really weird draft.
[7:29] Speaker 1: Well, Ola Candy went one. Yes, Mike Bibby two. Bibby
[7:32] Speaker 1: was two. Who was three?
[7:35] 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,
[7:53] Speaker 1: Mike Shoplett, I think he went eight.
[7:55] Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to say he went ahead of Paul
[7:57] Speaker 3: Pierce and Dirk.
[7:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And the late Tractor Traylor, who was, you know.
[8:03] Speaker 2: No, Tractor Traylor went six. Jason Williams went seven. Larry Hughes,
[8:08] Speaker 2: who was that guy in college, went eight.
[8:11] Speaker 1: Wow.
[8:11] Speaker 2: Then Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce, followed by Bonzi Wells.
[8:16] 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
[8:27] Speaker 1: fell in large part because Kansas wasn't showing up in
[8:32] 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
[8:36] 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.
[8:48] Speaker 1: Well, I mean, well, sure. Wait, Rafe LaFrance won $ 3, 000
[8:53] Speaker 1: as teammate. But we can all see.
[8:55] Speaker 3: Two things.
[8:56] Speaker 2: One, Rafe did get glowing recommendations from Roy Williams. And
[8:59] 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
[9:26] 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
[9:53] Speaker 2: the post.
[9:53] Speaker 1: No.
[9:54] Speaker 3: He don't go in there. That's not what this is.
[9:56] 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
[10:02] 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
[10:20] 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%
[10:37] Speaker 2: from three and average eight points a game, 3.4 rebounds
[10:41] 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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[31:49] 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] Speaker 3: The Right Time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm
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[1:03:04] Speaker 3: you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.

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