h f ld Glory Days I n the years after World War II many cities in the American Southwest grew quickly Few however grew as quickly as Dallas Texas From 1940 to 1980 its population tripled The people in the Dallas area were hungry for professional sports They got a pro football team in the 1960s and a major-league baseball team in the 1970s In 1980 two wealthy business leaders Donald Carter and Norm Sonju brought a National Basketball Association NBA team to Big D and named it the Mavericks hA The Mavs weren’t the first pro basketball team to call Dallas home In 1967 the Chaparrals were one of the original teams in the American Basketball Association a rival league to the NBA The Chaparrals eventually moved to San Antonio and became the Spurs 6
The Mavericks joined the NBA for the 1980 81 season Dick Motta coached the team His first stars were Brad Davis Tom LaGarde and Jim Spanarkel Dallas won only 15 games that year but the following season three talented young players joined the team Mark Aguirre Jay Vincent and Rolando Blackman In 1983 84 the Mavs made it to the playoffs and defeated the Seattle SuperSonics now the Oklahoma City Thunder in their first series Aguirre became an All-Star that season and 22-year-old Sam Perkins was one of the NBA’s best rookies The Mavericks added more good players to their lineup including Derek Harper Roy Tarpley James Donaldson and Detlef Schrempf In 1986 87 they finished first in the Midwest Division One year later Dallas advanced it all the way to the finals of the Western Conference It took seven grueling games for the Los Angeles Lakers to defeat them As the stars of the 1980s got older the Mavericks found it very difficult to replace them In 1991 92 Dallas won only 22 games LEFT Mark Aguirre led the Mavs to their first playoff appearance ABOVE Sam Perkins made an immediate impact in Dallas as a rookie 7
During the next two seasons they recorded a total of just 23 victories The bright side of this story was that the team’s poor record meant it would get high picks in the draft The Mavs selected a trio of young stars in Jim Jackson Jamal Mashburn and Jason Kidd They were known around the NBA as the Three J’s Jackson could score from anywhere on the court Mashburn was a dunking machine Kidd was one of the best young point guards in basketball The Three J’s made the highlight reels most nights but Dallas continued to struggle Things began to change after Don Nelson was hired to coach the Mavericks in the late-1990s He built a new team around three different young stars Steve Nash Michael Finley and Dirk Nowitzki Nelson was one of the first NBA coaches to realize how to blend the talents of players from different countries The Mavericks LEFT Jason Kidd was the leader of the Three J’s ABOVE Jamal Mashburn specialized in schooling his opponents 9
