As far as team slogans go, "MFFL" has to be one the stronger ones in professional sports. It's certainly better than "Passion. Pride. Pacers" or "Pride. Passion. Pirates." Did you know there was a movie called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?" I mean, what are we doing America?
Anyway, MFFL, short for Mavs Fan For Life, is something I thought I would be for, well, life.
As a kid growing up in the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, I had no passion greater than the Dallas Mavericks. From an early age, I inherited my dad's love for the Mavs - and also his season tickets.
I listened to him reminisce about the rowdy days at Reunion Arena, from the team's inception in the 80s to the basketball dog days of the 90s. How he and his friends would get a free pizza if the Mavericks scored 125 points and won. (The bar for promotions was a lot higher back then!) Or when he and my older brother Alec saw the Mavs beat Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
His love for the game of basketball became mine, and therefore so did his hometown team. As I got older, my fandom of the Mavericks remained strong. I guess you could say it remained "MFFL Strong," the Mavericks mantra for the 2014 playoffs.
For a while, I pursued a career in sports journalism so I could be around the game for a living. I had a great job with the Texas Legends that was going to propel me to this career path if I kept working in that direction. I lived and breathed the Mavs for two decades, until my love for the team and the NBA as a whole started to deteriorate.
I tried to hold onto my love of the game. More importantly, I wanted to hold onto this shared bonding experience with my dad. Many of my best memories came with him and me sitting in Section 119 at the American Airlines Center.
It's where I was born. It's where I thought I would die. Neither of those are true.
But something that is true: I am no longer a Mavs Fan For Life. I am a MFFL no more.
Pretend Jerry Stackhouse (L), Pretend Dirk Nowitzki (C), Pretend Jason Terry (R) & Real Me
How did it happen? How could one go from loyal fanatic who couldn't and wouldn't miss a game... to not feeling a thing? It's not one reason, or even two or three, but rather a gradual descent over time. Like Natalie Portman sliding further into madness in Black Swan. Or Leonardo Dicaprio in Shutter Island. Or Lindsay Lohan in real life.
The truth is that I haven't been much of a Mavericks fan since he retired. And by he I of course mean Dirk Nowitzki. That dude. Dirk.
Since Dirk's career ended in 2019, I have had muted interest in the Mavs. Add the drastic dip in quality to NBA basketball --no defense, no inside game, too many fouls, travels and carries on literally every play-- and a league that is run by their grossly overpaid diva superstars has become unwatchable for me.
I tried to stick with it. I've loved the game my whole life. But like a man trying to stick out a marriage with a woman that he no longer loves, I was living a lie. (That was dramatic but you get the point.)
NBA basketball has become a pick-up game similar to your neighborhood rec center where people only shoot 3's and everything is a foul. Just like the real NBA, why would you even drive the ball to the basket if you're just going to call a foul and check it up? If the bonus existed at my local gym, I'd still be there right now finishing a game.
I don't like talking about the NBA product, so I'll let YouTuber JimmyHighroller do it for me in this really well done video essay about the state of play in the league I used to love.
The poster boy of this "new era" of basketball is none other than Luka Doncic, the superstar who replaced Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas. Doncic is one the best basketball players in the world, there's no doubt about it.
But there's also no doubt that he carries the ball every time he dribbles it. He shuffles his feet with every lateral movement and he practically completes a full pirouette with his go-to step back jumper. He complains about every single call and whines like a spoiled child whenever something doesn't go his way. He's been internationally coddled since he was a teenager. He acts like it.
He shows up to new seasons out of shape, he's lazy on defense, he's already gotten a coach fired (that helped the franchise win an NBA championship) and he is every bit the privileged, pampered superstar that defines not just the NBA, but also our modern world. He knows who he is and knows he can do no wrong, so why should he try to improve his behaviors that would be seen as problematic in nearly any other industry? Why should any of these star athletes?
There are no consequences for people like him. He's a millionaire celebrity megastar. He doesn't live in the real world. He hasn't in a long time. He never will again.
That doesn't mean I have to like him. And truth be told, I don't. I pretended for a while because his jersey said "Mavericks." A few years ago, my mom got me a Luka jersey for Hanukkah.
"Don't you want to support our new star player?!" she asked, unaware that I wasn't a fan.
Though not her intention, I was repulsed at the idea of replacing Dirk. I told her I didn't want the shirt and we gave it to our kid neighbor or something.
And perhaps that's part of the problem. To me, Dirk Nowitzki was perfect.
As someone who grew up watching Dirk shed his German blood and tears to earn everything he ever achieved, working countless hours behind the scenes, battling through some of the most gut-wrenching lows and achieving some of the most emotional highs, I couldn't go on without him.
To me, number 41 represented everything I loved about the Mavericks: his heart, his attitude, his teamwork, his sportsmanship, his kindness, his dedication to not only himself but others, and then of course his historical talent... I had little interest in continuing my basketball journey without Dirk.
Nowitzki's Hall of Fame career is a tale of two decades.
The Mavericks spent the first 10 years trying to win a championship. Despite numerous personnel disasters like letting Steve Nash go and giving his money to Erick Dampier, or realizing the best you can do in TWENTY YEARS OF NBA DRAFTS is Josh Howard (or are we still waiting on the Roddy Beaubois breakout?), there was no doubt that owner Mark Cuban was trying to bring a championship to Dallas.
Which, in 2011, because of Dirk, he did.
After that, it was a decade of futility. Cuban used his newfound status amongst the NBA's elite to try and sell Dallas and the Mavericks as a free agent destination. What ensued for the remainder of Dirk's precious time left was swing-and-miss after swing-and-miss in trying to sign the top NBA free agents.
Cuban swung for the fences and ended up striking out looking.
Instead of Chris Paul or Deron Williams, the Mavericks ended up with Darren Collison and Mike James.
Instead of Dwight Howard or DeAndre Jordan, the Mavericks ended up with Chris Kaman and Andrew Bogut.
Instead of Chris Bosh or Carmelo Anthony, the Mavericks ended up with Chandler Parsons and Harrison Barnes.
With zero draft capital to fall back on, scapegoats would eventually be made out of head coach Rick Carlisle and later on General Manager and the guy responsible for recruiting Dirk, Donnie Nelson.
Nelson wanted Dirk and talked Cuban into it during the 1998 NBA Draft. In 2013, he wanted another young foreigner, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Cuban denied that request and the Mavs ended up selecting Shane Larkin.
In 2018, Nelson wanted the next international prodigy in Doncic and Cuban obliged, saving the franchise from a years-long rebuild that would have taken place without finding another top level talent.
While all of this nonsense was happening on the court, the Mavericks organization found themselves mired in a sexual assault scandal that we still don't know the full extent of. It was an embarrassing revelation for the franchise, with accusations ranging all the way from the front office to gameday personnel.
Cuban eventually settled this controversy the way he solves all his problems - by throwing money at it. When it comes to the lack of accountability in today's NBA stars, whether it's Doncic or the league's primadonna mascot LeBron James, that kind of behavior is only enabled by the men running these teams, like Cuban or the despicable Donald Sterling or the recently outed Robert Sarver.
In a shocking turn of events, rich celebrities aren't the greatest people.
Which is okay in our society because we not only allow it, we cheer on and put these problematic personas on pedestals as long as they entertain us by making a basket, dunking a ball, or most importantly -- winning.
Which brings me back to Dirk Nowitzki.
Nobody ever requires celebrities like politicians, movie stars, or professional athletes to be good people. They don't need to and will have millions of loyal subjects regardless of their actions and behaviors.
That's what made Dirk different.
Dirk was and is one of the most genuinely kind people that exist on our planet Earth. It's as simple as that. It made cheering for him --whether he had a 40-point, 20-rebound game or just missed a potential game-winning shot at the buzzer-- so easy.
I don't find it easy to root for the crybaby Luka Doncic, or the entitled LeBron James, the social media ghost Kevin Durant, the immature Ja Morant, the annoying Chris Paul, the switches-teams-every-five-minutes James Harden, or the worst teammate in the world Kyrie Irving.
Oh yes, Kyrie Irving. Who now plays for the Dallas Mavericks. (At least or the next few months.)
Outside of the incessant LeBron James, Irving has been my least favorite player in the NBA for several years. Like LeBron and also James Harden, he has demanded his way out of any situation that doesn't roll out the red carpet and basically let him run the team as player, coach, general manager, and anything else they ask for a la Jackie Moon from Semi-Pro.
It's only a matter of time before LeBron fights a bear.
What separates Irving from LeBron or Harden or Morant or Doncic is that he is a legitimately terrible person. Completely remove his basketball talent from the equation, which 89 percent of sports fans cannot and will not ever do, and you have an arrogant, uneducated bully who literally went to college for 11 basketball games and I'll let you guess how many classes he attended.
Irving has always run his mouth, whether it's innocent stupid stuff like saying the earth is flat or his usual "it's always somebody else's fault" rhetoric that follows him wherever he goes. And he goes to a lot of new places.
The Mavericks are his fourth team in five seasons.
How does one of the most talented players in the entire world get tossed around like the worst gift at a White Elephant party?
You know the answer to that.
Irving has repeatedly called out his fellow teammates and coaches. His effort on defense makes Allen Iverson look like Gary Payton. He refused to get vaccinated when the NBA returned from their Covid hiatus. He spoke out against basketball coming back in the first place. He has sat out countless games with fake injuries. He once refused to talk to reporters, got fined $25,000, then called the media "pawns" on Instagram like a 12-year old. He threatened to have surgery on his knee if the Cavs didn't trade him in 2017. He publicly called out his Celtics teammates for not being good enough. (That team was one win away from the NBA Finals the previous season without him.) He missed a Nets game in Brooklyn and head coach Steve Nash literally didn't know where he was. He was later caught on video at a club... in Toronto. He also later said he didn't play because of personal reasons. Then he said it was an injured finger.
Either the guy has some sort of psychological issues --in which case I am all for him getting help-- or he is exactly what I think he is: a delusional, spoiled, pampered, babied, immature, rude, selfish, egotistical man-child bully.
And all this... all of this... before he also revealed himself to be racist.
Last October, Kyrie Irving shared a post on social media promoting a film that spreads blatant lies and antisemitic falsehoods. Something I've realized in the months since this happened are a lot of people honestly don't know what antisemitic means. I taught my seventh graders about it in our last unit when we covered World War II and the Holocaust. They didn't know what it meant, either.
They do now. Antisemitism is hate and prejudice directed at Jewish people.
Also to refresh your memory, the Holocaust was a genocide committed against Jews by the Nazis during World War II. Over six million innocent Jewish civilians were wiped out in a matter of years.
Racism has been the biggest problem in our society since the dawn of time. It's still an issue and it's not getting a whole lot better. What hurts the most is when people with a massive platform, like Irving, use it to spread hate and lies and hurt others. Even worse are the millions of people who treat every word out of a celebrity's mouth --or keyboard-- as the absolute truth.
Irving promoted this very racist film on his Instagram mere weeks after artist and fellow crazy person Kanye West publicly declared he will go to "defcon 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE."
Now what does defcon 3 mean? It's a military term defined as "force readiness increased above normal readiness."
So... violence.
Fantastic. As if the Jewish people haven't been through enough. In the last five years. Or ten. Or 100. Or a thousand when my ancestors were enslaved by the Egyptians. It's not a happy history. Yet here we are in 2023 with antisemitism on the rise once more.
Kyrie Irving, in promoting a film that attacked the Jewish community with dangerous falsehoods, refused to apologize. What he did was wrong, but his public relations team could have technically spun it into a "he shared the link but didn't actually read it" narrative. But no. His PR team, like everyone else in his life, are puppets. If they actually had his ear, he would theoretically make better choices.
"I'm not going to stand down on anything I believe in," Irving said in a postgame press conference days after the incident. "I'm only going to get stronger because I'm not alone. I have a whole army around me."
I can think of some people in history who said something very similar.
Put in the awkward situation of employing a bigot, even if he is just a basketball player, the Nets suspended Irving. They wanted him to apologize. He didn't. So, he got suspended. Then, Nike terminated their relationship with him.
LeBron James, who helped lead the NBA's boycott against racism toward the Black community in 2020, tweeted that Irving should not have been suspended. I guess it's different when it's not your race. I guess racism and hate will be tolerated if it isn't your problem. Shame on these guys I used to admire as a sports fan.
It might seem important to note that I myself am Jewish, but it really isn't. Whether I'm Jewish and American or if I was Black and British, I don't tolerate racism, sexism, homophobia, or hate and prejudice of any kind. I won't support anyone with these views, either. Nobody should. But we know that's not the world we currently or have ever lived in.
After the suspension, Irving finally sorta kinda apologized. On Instagram.
Before they would reinstate him, the Nets gave him some homework: They required him to give a more credible apology (read: actual apology), fined him in the form of donating to anti-hate charities, he needed to complete sensitivity training, meet with leaders of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish community, and finally sit down with Nets owner Joe Tsai to come to an amicable resolution.
He eventually returned to the basketball court, this whole ordeal costing him money he could spend in a day and support from a fan base that had already grown tired of his antics and lack of effort as a player, not to mention his shortcomings as a human being.
A few weeks later, he demanded a trade from the Nets. He started sitting out again with phantom injuries to prompt the team to deal him. Once he was traded --because pro athletes who demand trades usually get what they want-- he was magically healthy again. Modern science is a beautiful thing.
The team that ended up taking a chance on the basket case headache of Irving was the Dallas Mavericks.
And that was the day I officially went from a prospective MFFL to a MFF30Y: a Mavs Fan For 30 Years.
Your decisions are yours to make. Many sports fans support the name on the front of the jersey, not the back. But at what point do you draw the line? What if it was your race, religion, sex, or gender that a player on your favorite team spoke out against? Would it be different? The name on the back gets their check signed by the name on the front. I will tolerate none of it no matter where it's coming from.
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