The Season of Faith's Perfection

Yeah, I know....I ripped the title off from Fining Forester, relax. If you know me well, you know that I have been a Dallas Mavericks fan forever. I remember when Dad would score a set of tickets when I was pretty little to go and watch Rolondo Blackman, Brad Davis, Mark Aguirre and Derek Harper. I remember well the disappointments of Jim Jackson, Roy Tarpley, Popeye Jones and that infamous 11-71 season back in the early 90's. I remember going to games on "dollar dog nights" when the parking pass was more than the game ticket back in middle school and high school. I have always been a Mav's fan and at no time have I ever thought about switching up who I cheered for.

The 2000's haven't exactly been a walk in the park either. With several early playoff exits in the first part of the decade hope began to grow with the burgeoning of a certain 7' German.

Going in to the playoffs in 2006 things were good for the Mav's and for me. I had recently put school on the back burner again and had a job I was really excited about and making good money at. Sarah and I had moved in to a house we loved in Salt Lake and were fixing up. Brett was staying with us at the time and Ryan Sparks was over often and we made no qualms about cheering hard for the Mav's during that playoff run and the entire neighborhood knew it. When Dirty was able to finish the Spurs off in the Wester Conference Finals with the drive and the clutchest of all clutch free throws, the Mavericks were headed to the finals for the first time ever.

I don't need to go in to too much detail about the finals implosion but just to recap the Mav's jumped out to a solid 2-0 series lead and looked fantastic late in the 3rd quarter when the Heat came alive and won 4 straight starting with game 3. Of course there were some very dubious whistles, the phantom time out which Josh Howard never called and a very lop-sided free throw tally in games 5-6 which led the now former Laker's coach Phil Jackson to say that the league was retaliating against the Mav's owner Mark Cuban's criticism of the leauge via the free throw line.

Needless to say it was a tough one to swallow and 2007 wasn't any better with a strangle hold on the #1 seed overall riding a 67 win game season and facing a Golden State team that if Avery Johnson had played starters against in the end of the regular season and gave them one more loss, wouldn't have even made the playoff's. The Mav's lost the series being on a very short list of #1's to be beat by #8's. 2008, 2009 and 2010 were all largely forgettable advancing to the second round just once in those years but otherwise taking a first round ouster every season.

In that time I experienced what was to me an earth shattering awakening with regard to the political scene which you all know something about....If you don't just scroll down some. I think that this has made me very skeptical and even cynical at times regarding the government and their ineptitude. Economically things have been in the Sir John Crapper and this has for me and my business been devastating and changed the face of the industry in which I work. During this time we moved to Evanston Wyoming in a temporary house, in which we still reside which is also bursting at it's ever-loving seams. The primary purpose of moving to Evanston rather than say Rock Springs Wyoming was to be close to my Grandmother who passed away just over a year ago. Government regulation has kept business slow for us and taken most of our clients and forced them to use appraisers whom would normally be their 3rd or 4th choice. Thank you Chris Dodd and Barney Frank for punching my personal finances in the gut.

I have added 3 beautiful children to my life since 2006 and there have definitely been some wonderful experiences and spectacular high notes. But overall stress has been ratcheted up a few notches, the future seems for me to be more uncertain than ever and there are of course those 3 little mouths to feed.

When the Mavericks were heading in to the playoffs this year I was bracing myself for disappointment but hoping for the best knowing in my heart of hearts that this year would be different. The Mav's beat Portland in 6, swept the Lakers in epic fashion and promptly dismissed the Thunder who will be a great team for at least the next 5 years as long as the roster doesn't blow up. All the while the Miami Heat were making their way through the East and finally the stage was set last week and the Mav's and Heat would get to reset the 2006 finals.

I know this is stupid and part of me is slightly embarrassed to even record and publicize this but this year I am cheering for the Mav's harder than I ever have. Not just so they can exorcise their playoff demons but it seems that my life has been a parallel to theirs over a similar time frame. So their playoff destiny is something of a chance at personal redemption for me. If they can win and do it against the very team who has caused them so much mental anguish over the past 5 years maybe there is still some justice in the world. Perhaps there is a reason to allow me to get my hopes up about something instead of just absorbing sucker punch after blind sucker punch.

By the way my truck just broke down.

Let's go Mav's!!