DALLAS — "Nobody thought we could do it" might be the most overused, trite phrase in all of sports, supplanting even "taking it one day at a time" and "giving all the glory to God."
It is mostly meaningless, save for those rare occasions when nobody actually thinks a team has a chance in hell of winning.
This was the situation the Dallas Mavericks found themselves in almost a year ago when almost nobody thought they would beat Portland, much less LA and Oklahoma City and Miami en route to an NBA Championship. It is where they find themselves yet again as this postseason gets ready to begin, this despite being defending champs. Nobody -- and I mean nobody -- thinks they can do it again.
"I don't know if it is any harder," Mavs guard Jason Terry told me Tuesday when I asked about being underdogs again. "It is what it is -- when your team makes you an underdog."
Yes, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban decided what they were going to be this season -- underdogs, defending champions in name only, place holders -- when he waved goodbye to Tyson Chandler and JJ Barea and DeShawn Stevenson and held off on a contract extension for Terry and added a whole lot of not much.
Players are not stupid. They see what everybody else sees. And Maverick players absolutely understood Cuban had bailed on this season in pursuit of dreams of Double Ds.
"The contract does not matter. Seriously factor that out," Terry said. "It is chasing Dwight Howard, chasing Deron Williams. I mean that sends a signal that this year is a wash."
Which is fine if you are 23.
Or only marginally talented.
Or still chasing that elusive championship.
It is less tenable if you are Terry and you are playing for a contract, or Jason Kidd and this is very possibly your last season in the NBA, or Dirk Nowitzki with who knows how many years of greatness left before age takes over. A give-up season is a lot harder to stomach for them, no matter what greater good reasoning went into it.
"Screw that is right," Terry said. "We are doing it for the group of guys that are here this year.... For us -- the coaching staff, the players and Cuban. He is like 'I put this team together as best I could so let's see what happens.' I think the core group of guys is intact and that is the key. Hey, they are writing us off again. We are older and we don't have the same team. That is where the underdog comes from this time around and we have been there."
What Dallas needs to do is channel that inner "[bleep] you" that helped them beat Miami a year ago and turn that inward. Dirk and Jet and JKidd need to say "Love you, Cubes but [bleep] you. We are doing this for ourselves. We are not going out like this, as some sort of opening act for Deron Williams."
If there is anybody who would appreciate this chutzpah, it is Cuban.
He gave lip service to this team being better. He obviously was being ironic. That is an insult to last season's team -- how physically and mentally tough they became and how that allowed them to beat Miami. This is not that team, not even if Lamar Odom had been slightly useful which he was not. This team literally was the best Cuban could come up with while still giving them a shot at getting his hands on The Double Ds in the offseason.
Cuban is not the first dude to be mesmerized by Double Ds. Many good marriages have been destroyed by pursuit of the big shiny pair that belong to somebody else.
Hell, Cuban's pursuit of Deron and Dwight probably even makes sense given the age and shape of the Mavs roster, the NBA landscape and what looked to be available a year ago.
And Cuban deserves credit for doing what he thought was right rather than what was easy.
"It was a tough decision for Mark and (Mavs general manager) Donnie (Nelson). As players, I think (Mark) knew how we felt. We'd love to have all the warriors back and go at it one more time," Nowitzki said. "It is just a business decision they had to make. And we'll see in the next couple of summers if it is the right one, if we get a big fish, a big name in here and, if not, maybe, we should have signed everybody.
"We just have to wait and see what the future brings."
It will not bring Dwight, not likely.
Whatever crazy-pants angle he is working down in Orlando has him signed for another season and likely available only through trade. And why do I not see The Magic being wooed with Vince Carter? This leaves Deron Williams, a distinct possibility because a) he is from one of the millions of suburbs around Dallas and b) he has openly talked about wanting to play here and c) Cuban may very well money-whip him.
Or Deron Williams may stay in New Jersey -- especially since New Jersey will be in Brooklyn next season and will feature Jay-Z and that crazy Russian dude who seems willing to out-Cuban Cuban.
And then how do you explain this season to Terry, JKidd and Dirk?
Hey, sorry about last season and not really giving y'all a chance at a championship and not really getting anybody to help us all going forward but wasn't it fun seeing yourself on Khloe and Lamar?
"It was tough when first got here because we had nobody," Dirk admitted.
This has been hard for Dirk, too, despite this festering belief that a championship has made him lazy or unmotivated. This was supposed to be his victory lap, a chance to finally get recognition as not only one of the best to ever play the game but as a leader and a mentally and physically tough mo-fo to borrow a favorite phrase of Texas governor Rick Perry.
Instead he is right back where he was a year ago -- an underdog, and Jason Terry is 100 percent right when he says that started internally.
He is also right when he says this makes them dangerous, just like a year ago.
Only this time it is not some fictional nobody who does not think they can do it. It is their owner. And he'd love it if they proved him wrong.
