Justin's Notes
#MFFL (Mavs Fan for Life)
Oct. 20, 2025
Kyrie Irving taking a fadeaway two against the Knicks in Nov. 2024.
My senior year of high school was the year I really began to watch basketball. Derrick Rose and his MVP season. The multitude of "Big Three's" with Duncan, Parker, & Ginóbili being my favorite. But man, I can't explain to you how much I loved watching Dirk Nowitzki. The way he controlled the court, his transition jumpers, the way he would post a player up just for a fallaway two. To see him dominate some of the best players in his generation in an unprecedented finals run. I was convinced to be a Mavericks fan. You can call me a bandwagoner. I don't mind.
After a couple of years, I started to not pay much attention to basketball. It wasn't until 2018 that I started paying attention again. When the Mavericks drafted a young Slovenian named Luka Dončić. I specifically remember sitting at my parents dining room table, watching the Mavs play the Blazers in Portland (December 23rd, 2018). Yes, I looked the date up. I don't remember things that well. With less than a second left, on an inbounds play, Luka cuts to the corner, and in motion, a fallaway catch-and-shoot three forces overtime. That play fully drew me back in. I couldn't get enough watching this guy play.
I will never forget seeing him in person versus the Knicks in December of 2022, when he put up a historic stat line of 60 points, 21 rebounds, and 10 assists after forcing overtime. The same year led to the 2022 Western Conference Finals run. The utter humiliation Luka served to the Suns in that second-round game seven. 35 points on 63% shooting in Phoenix that quite literally doomed that franchise to the state they are at now. Although Luka has his injury history, I still found myself relentlessly rooting for this team, even during that 2023 season when we got Kyrie Irving but cratered and essentially tanked at the end of the year from injuries (in the end, worth it to get Dereck Lively in the draft). This all led to 2024. The finals run.
Averaging almost a triple-double (28.9 points, 9.5 rebounds, 8.1 assists) over the playoffs, Luka dispatched opponent after opponent. I loved it. Fighting through the Clippers, beating the OKC Thunder (igniting my sports hate of this franchise), and taking down a rising Minnesota team with the now infamous late-game isolation play on Rudy Gobert. I lost my mind on that shot. I couldn't believe it. As an aside, I have to defend Luka's play in the Boston series. I understand his defensive criticisms, but the rest of that team fell flat. Kyrie, PJ Washington, Derrick Jones Jr., and everyone else seemed to forget how to shoot. The entire team played poorly defensively. But rightfully so, Luka took the blame.
So here I was in 2025, truly believing we had what it would take to make another finals run. I truly believed in this team. Luka is an unstoppable force, and I knew we had OKC's number, being the only team to beat them three times in the regular season. Unfortunately, Nico Harrison and Patrick Dumont ruined what should have been another 10+ years of Luka fandom in Dallas. I remember sitting on the couch watching a show with Syd, seeing the tweet about the Luka trade, and in shock texting my NBA fantasy league thread in disbelief. I had friends calling me, making sure I was okay. I legitimately couldn't sleep, trying to rationalize the most inexplicable trade I had ever seen. The next morning at church, I had people approaching me in the lobby somberly, like I had lost a loved one. In hindsight it is a bit funny how much it affected me, but I couldn't, and still can't, believe that it happened.
I can't blame Dumont. It is obvious that he is absolutely clueless about basketball. It isn't his fault he got manipulated into thinking arguably the worst trade in NBA history was a good idea. Harrison, on the other hand, has no excuse. It was professional malfeasance. He does not deserve his job. I obviously do not have any real ill will against Nico as a human, but as the general manager of the Mavs, he should without a doubt be fired. Until Nico is gone, I will be skeptical of the future of this franchise, but at least we were undeservedly gifted Cooper Flagg in the draft this year. In the words of Nico, Flagg is a "once-in-a-lifetime chance." It's insane he doesn't realize the Mavericks already had a generational, once-in-a-lifetime player. (I am really excited to have Cooper Flagg, by the way; don't misunderstand that). I will be following Luka for the rest of his career, and I truly do expect, and hope, that he drops 40 points on the Mavericks every time he plays there. I will also hold irrational hope that once Nico is inevitably gone, maybe Luka will come back to his franchise.
All that to say, I find myself on the eve of the 2025-2026 NBA regular season excited for the first game of the season in two days. Let's go, Mavs. #MFFL.
