ROWDY TIME SPORTS

I’ve been through this before, when everyone counted us out.

Let ‘em.

Okay, maybe it’s not the best thing to quote silly family baseball movies from 1994. But the basic premise still applies.

As the next NBA season gets underway and the Mavericks begin their quest to get back to the playoffs, many want to already throw them under the bus and declare them a lottery team.

CBS Sports’ Matt Moore has already declared the Mavs to be “dead meat” and finishing last in the Southwest Division – which, remember, still contains that team from New Orleans, whatever its name currently is.

Just remember two things.

One, most of them are the same people who want to put the Lakers and the Heat in the Finals now because they both won their first game yesterday.

And second… they all counted the Mavericks out in 2011 as well. How did that work out?

The Mavericks are no different than the Rangers in this town in that no one has ever expected them to win anything ever. Perhaps they don’t even want them to win. During my annual season’s rant about the lack of baseball support for this town, some told me the Mavs have it worse. Maybe they’re right.

Ninety percent of those who call themselves MFFLs? Likely didn’t watch a game prior to Game Six of the 2011 Finals.

Before that? Dirk Nowitzki – soft Euro. Jason Kidd – too old, terrible shooter, couldn’t get it done. Jason Terry – thug who was a cancer that wouldn’t play defense.

And it was a guarantee that the Mavs would be bounced in the first round that year.

Instead, they became the NBA and ESPN’s worst nightmare, delaying their crowning of Lebron James and the Miami Heat as the greatest ever and trumpeting their belief that throwing away money and buying talent always beats hard work and building a roster of players who want it more.

I think ESPN is still petitioning the league office to just nullify that Finals result so they can hands down declare the Heat the best team in the last three years.

The main point of this rambling is, go ahead and declare the Mavs a dead franchise and jump on the backs of people wanting another year of “Team Tank.” See how well that’s going to work for the teams that did it last year. Heck, I can’t even remember who the number one draft pick was in June, so it’s not like he’s guaranteed to be the next savior.

The look of the Mavericks franchise certainly took a blow when Gersson Rosas stepped down yesterday as general manager after just three months on the job. Those media guides are certainly going to look awkward now.

On the other side, Mark Cuban already got one major victory a few weeks ago when, after years of battle, beat the SEC (not the sports conference) in their insider trading charge against him, and he naturally had his choice words about them being bullies.

Compared to that, the bullies of the press and glass-is-always-half-empty “fans,” are nothing. And we’ll just see who gets to call out who after game 82, not game one.

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