It's Apparently 2006 Again!

This is the only picture I could find of Dirk Nowitzki and LeBron James playing basketball together. Their teams have rarely met together, so it's only fair.

In 2006, the Dallas Mavericks met the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals. As is common knowledge by now, the Mavericks took a 2-0 series lead and proceeded to blow it, losing the next 4 games in a row. Mark Cuban was furious at the referees, conspiring that somehow the NBA was against his Mavericks winning the NBA title because of his outspoken behavior. Let's get things straight for starters: Mark Cuban is not an awful human being, he's just a very loud one. He's like that kid who fails a test and then loudly proclaims that the teacher is awful at teaching because they failed. Cuban is a sore loser and has a big mouth, which was caused nobody to take him seriously over the year. Despite all that, he did have some legitimate gripes about some refereeing here and there, but nothing that would affect the entire series.

Now that that's out of the way, we can get to the issue at hand: the Dallas Mavericks are going back to the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. Both teams have been to the Finals once and it was this same matchup. Their player makeup is quite different these days though, the Mavericks of 2006 are gone with the exceptions of Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry. The Heat of 2006 are gone except for Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem. Back then, the Mavericks had home court advantage. This time, the Heat will have home court, and will take advantage of thus far not losing at home in the playoffs.

There are also a big critical difference between these two teams now. The Mavericks are now made up of veteran players desperately seeking their first championship, somewhat similar to the 2004 Lakers, but the Mavericks are all made up of "almost-there" players, like Jason Kidd, who lost to the Lakers and Spurs two years in a row. The Heat are made up of key bench players from around the NBA who have thus far not proven their worth whatsoever, but 3 stars who are the driving force behind the team.

The result of this Finals could possibly determine how NBA teams are structured for the rest of the decade. If the Mavericks win, it will be proof that a team with 1 superstar surrounded by a solid starting 5 and deep bench wins championships. If the Heat win, it will be proof that a team can excise all of its non-above average talent and simply throw money at athletes to win a championship, the way the Yankees have been doing things for decades. In a league with a salary cap, the way the Heat have conducted business is a very dangerous thing. If the Heat do win, every team with deep pockets will do all they can to emulate the Heat, meaning that the next decade will be made up of competition solely between the Lakers, Knicks, Heat, Celtics, and Mavericks. The past decade hasn't exactly had great parity consisting primarily of the Lakers appearing 6 times and the Spurs 3 times in the Finals and the East having 3 teams make 2 appearances in the '00 decade, the Nets, Pistons, and Celtics. With a rematch of the '06 Finals, it's become pretty clear that NBA has no parity and if you want to have some chance of winning, you need to on the Lakers, Spurs, or any team in the East with a high payroll.

Neither team winning is all that good for the NBA (it would have been much better for the NBA's future if the Finals matchup were the Thunder and Bulls), but one team winning over the other is far more preferable. How would you rather die, being shot multiple times in non-lethal areas until you bleed to death (Heat), or would you rather just have it end quick and painlessly via lethal injection even though you know what's coming (Mavericks). This matchup is not that surprising, but it also makes me want to see what the hell is going to happen next season. There's an impending lockout, a terrible draft class coming up, and one giant future free agent that will get as much press as LeBron James did: Dwight Howard.