When he used to be nothing more than a season-ticket holder with expensive seats at Reunion Arena, Mark Cuban thought the same thing you did if you were one of those unfortunate Maverick fans of the late '90s.
He saw Don Nelson get a young German kid with bad hair named Dirk Nowitzki in a Dallas uniform and assumed the worst.
"I didn't watch that closely," Cuban said of Nowitzki's rookie season. "I went (to games) to have fun and drink beer and take dates. Honestly, before I bought the team and started paying attention, I thought he was just another big white guy from Europe that Nellie brought in."
"Then you started watching and realized he was something special."
Geez, you think?
Nelson grew accustom in those early Dirk days about hearing that he'd brought in another "big white stiff" like Chris Anstey or Bruno Sundov.
"Yeah, I kind of got that a lot early on," Nelson said with a laugh. "But that's OK. Sometimes it takes a little time."
Time for 30,000 points and 19 seasons to go by. Three coaches, one championship and hundreds of teammates. Add it up and Nowitzki has etched his name among the very best basketball players ever to grace this planet. Sometime in the next few games, Nowitzki will pass the 30K barrier _ and every single one of those points has been scored while wearing a Mavericks' uniform.
He will be the seventh NBA player to reach the milestone, following Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain and Julius Erving, who scored a large chunk of his 30K in the ABA.
Only Malone and Bryant scored 30,000 with one team.
Maverick fans have been privileged to watch him for 19 seasons. And it will be 20 when he calls it a career after the 2017-18 season, which he plans to play to put an exclamation point on his career.
And what a career it has been.
