Young and Restless : After Finding So Much Success Early in the Life of the Franchise, Dallas Mavericks Are at Rock Bottom

Requiem for a heavyweight, NBA style.

The Dallas Mavericks were a very good basketball team in the late 1980s--so good they won 55 games in 1986-87. They won 53 and reached Game 7 of the Western Conference finals the next season.

So good that Detlef Schrempf was the eighth man in the rotation.

So good that they could trade Dale Ellis, a future 20-point scorer, to Seattle for Al Wood and not regret it.

So good, says Richie Adubato, an assistant coach in those days, that “we were looking at a team that was going to knock on the door for any number of years and, eventually, the door would have opened up.”

The Dallas Mavericks are a very bad basketball team in the early 1990s.

So bad that four players were not even first-team all-conference in college.

So bad that they lost by winning in the spring of ‘92, when two victories over Houston in the final five games inched them up in the standings and decreased their chances in the lottery to get Shaquille O’Neal.

So bad, says forward Terry Davis, one of the few bright spots while averaging 15.7 points and 9.2 rebounds, that “right now, we don’t have any respect around the league. The Dallas Mavericks? Not at all.”

From a defeat by the Lakers in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals in June of 1988 to the worst team in the NBA in December of 1992. This could be the first time a front office could have gone on the injured list with whiplash.

Along the way, terminology changed. The Mavericks were once synonymous with blueprint, as in, “The Mavericks are the organization all future expansion teams should copy.” And now, when somebody says they are in a no-win situation, it means just that. No wins.

OK, they have won two, against 19 defeats, and that puts the Mavericks at .095 and on pace to match the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers for the worst record ever, 9-73.

“It is tough to do,” said Derek Harper, Dallas’ best player and the remaining on-court holdover from the playoff days.

“I think the main objective when you are competing at this level is to win. But I don’t think that is important right now to the people in the organization. The important thing is that we develop young talent, that we show improvement from one half of the season to the next half. With all of that said and done, it’s point blank that that’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to start things from scratch.”

All over again.

THE RISE

The original plan, in 1978, was to lure the Buffalo Braves to town, an idea supported in the Dallas mayor’s office. But the Braves moved to San Diego and became the Clippers.

Organizers turned toward getting a new team. In April of 1980, after a couple of years and even more obstacles, owner Donald Carter, General Manager Norm Sonju and counsel Doug Adkins met at a restaurant in Dallas, wrote their proposal on a napkin and sent the deal to then-Portland owner Larry Weinberg, chairman of the NBA’s expansion committee. Thirteen days later, a franchise was born.

They were off. Unsigned rookie Kiki Vandeweghe, the Mavericks’ first college draft choice, was traded for a package that included a 1981 selection that became Rolando Blackman. Jerome Whitehead and Richard Washington went to Cleveland for a 1983 pick that became Derek Harper. A guard named Brad Davis, soured after several stops in the NBA and Continental Basketball Assn., had planned to retire to pursue his education, but signed as a free agent, then retired 12 seasons later

All this was before Christmas in the inaugural season. They had a 15-67 record, landed the first pick in the 1981 draft and then got kneed in the future. Looking at a draft that included Isiah Thomas, a future Hall of Famer, and Buck Williams, still one of the game’s most dependable defenders and rebounders, they picked Mark Aguirre.

Sam Perkins came with a first-round pick in 1984. The Mavericks improved their record for the fourth consecutive season, averaged 98% capacity at Reunion Arena, set an NBA record for the fewest turnovers and reached the playoffs for the second season in a row. The franchise was 5 years old.

They reached the second round of the playoffs in 1985-86, then added Roy Tarpley in the draft. He was their curse and blessing. In that draft, Mark Price slipped to the second round, went to Dallas as the 25th player taken overall and was traded to Cleveland for a future second-round pick.

Next, in 1986-87, came a 55-27 finish and Midwest Division title, but also a first-round defeat by Seattle in the playoffs. Finally, the apex--53-29 in 1987-88, victories over Denver and Houston in the playoffs before playing the Lakers to 3-3 in the Western Division finals. In Game 7 at the Forum, the Mavericks were within six points with 5:34 to play, but then came up on the wrong end of a 15-2 run.

The Lakers went on to beat Detroit in the finals and became repeat champions. The Mavericks returned to Dallas and were greeted at the airport by 4,500 fans.

“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Harper said. “When you’re a success, you tend to remember and not forget. Those were the good days. I think the thing that bothers me so much is that I did experience some good. I got a taste of winning and what it was like.”

THE FALL

The Mavericks didn’t ease into it, either.

The season after what turned out to be their crescendo, Tarpley missed 14 games because of a knee injury and later was suspended after his second strike under the NBA drug policy. Schrempf was traded to Indiana for Herb Williams and twice became the league’s sixth man of the year. Aguirre was dealt for Adrian Dantley. And Dallas dressed 12 players only three times in the final 36 games. The Mavericks went 38-44 and failed to make the playoffs.

There was a realization that Aguirre had no future with the Mavericks, who also were wrestling with the Tarpley problem.

“The organization kept putting their eggs in certain players,” Perkins said. “And those eggs cracked.”

Their plan for the future wasn’t far behind. It started in August of 1990, when they let a quality player go without compensation. Perkins, an unrestricted free agent, signed with the Lakers. But loading up for another run in 1990-91, the Mavericks traded for Fat Lever and Rodney McCray, signed free agent Alex English and also had Tarpley back. They mortgaged the future in large part to do it, shipping out four first-round choices.

“There’s one, two, three, four, five heads trying to make one decision,” Perkins says of the Maverick front office. “If they had one guy making the decisions, it would be OK. The way I hear it, the owner doesn’t know much about basketball, but he makes all the quality decisions. One GM should make the decisions, and it should be Rick Sund (the vice president for basketball operations).”

Dallas opened with a 3-1 record. Before the next game, Sonju was called to the locker room and was told that Lever, who had averaged 18 or 19 points in each of his previous four seasons in Denver and who was one of the best rebounding guards in the NBA, would need knee surgery and probably would be lost for the season. Sonju admitted to himself that the Mavericks could not win the title, but that a 50-victory season was still realistic, and went to his seat for the tipoff.

Before the first quarter was over, Tarpley had suffered a knee injury that ended his season. As if it mattered, the Mavericks won the game to go to 4-1.

“In one night, I lost our two best players,” Sonju said. “We’ve never been the same since.”

They finished 28-54. Lever returned the next season, 1991-92, to play 31 games before surgery on the other knee forced him out again, this time for the final 41 games. Tarpley also came back, only to be “permanently dismissed” by the NBA for refusing to take a drug test, thus earning his third strike.

The Mavericks emphasized youth and told Adubato, who had been promoted to head coach in November of 1989, to play the young talent. He did and the team went 22-60, setting the stage for this season and the biggest decision: starting over.

Blackman was traded to New York for a 1995 No. 1 pick. McCray was traded to Chicago for a No. 1 pick from Golden State as part of a three-team deal. Williams was not re-signed. That meant three players who appeared in 75 games each--two of whom started at least half the time--were gone from a 22-victory team without anyone replacing them. Their lottery pick, Jim Jackson of Ohio State, is unsigned and says he will go through the draft again in ’93.

“Every game we play we’re undermanned,” said Sonju, a self-described eternal optimist. “Every single game we play. We’re the worst team in basketball right now. We know that. Is it fun? No, I hate it. I want to win so bad I could taste it. But I’m behind the decision because I believe it’s absolutely the only way to do it. I don’t want to be half pregnant like last year’s team--half veterans and half kids. Now we know who we are. We’ve got one leader in Derek, all (the rest are) kids.”

THE BOTTOM

I have been a Mavericks season ticket - holder for over 10 years and usually attend approximately 15 games per year. I currently own six seats, which I divide into sets of two and give to business associates. This year I have tried everyone I know, and I can’t even give the Mavericks tickets away. Most people laugh at me when I offer them tickets, so they usually go unused.

--Letter in the Dallas Morning News

Ladies and gentleman, your Dallas Mavericks! Derek Harper. Mike Iuzzolino. Tracy Moore. Stephen Bardo. Walter Palmer. Doug Smith. Donald Hodge. Walter Bond. Brian Howard. Terry Davis. Radisav Curcic. Randy White. Injured list: Fat Lever. Dexter Cambridge. Sean Rooks.

They are being outscored, 117.7-101.8, and outshot, 51.2%-42.9%, and not even getting much pressure from opponents. Only one player has fouled out against Dallas this season, compared to 15 Mavericks.

This is hardly a blind-side hit, remember. This is the plan, an option deemed better than being somewhat potent with Blackman and Williams and McCray, but still probably finishing deep in the pack.

“Basically, I thought about it the whole summer,” Adubato said. “I really wasn’t looking forward to the opening of the season, because I knew it was going to be rough. I knew it was going to be very, very rough.”

Said Sonju, “Put yourself in Richie’s position. He’s a coach, wants to win every game he plays, knows he’s comfortable with the veterans, but knows that Norm and Mr. Carter and Rick--his bosses, in effect--want to go with the kids because we know we’re not very good and that it is much more important to me to develop the young kids.”

Historically, though, not all the young kids have developed for Dallas. Consider the Mavericks’ disastrous record of first-round selections since Tarpley in 1986: Jim Farmer in ‘87, Randy White with a lottery pick in ‘89, Doug Smith with a lottery pick in ’91 and now not being able to sign Jackson to a four-year contract while the others around him got six years guaranteed.

Attendance, after being no worse than 98% capacity of Reunion Arena the previous seven seasons, dropped to 90.5% in 1991-92. Through the first 11 home games of 1992-93--adhering to the league policy that figures are based on tickets distributed, including give-aways, and not the actual number of fans--the drop is to 72.4%.

The crowd in the 17,502-seat building was announced at 14,096 for a recent game against Houston but was closer to 8,000. The Rockets won, 117-96, and about 30 minutes afterward, Carter stood in a hallway just outside the Maverick locker room and contemplated his position.

“This pain--with hindsight in a number of places, you could do some things different,” he said. “But with hindsight, all we could get is the knowledge not to do it again. By mistakes and the breaks of the game, we have earned the right to go through this pain. My wife said she doesn’t want her share, though.”

THE FUTURE?

The Mavericks, the youngest team in the NBA if calculating the active roster, have five first-round picks in the next three years. They also have the rights to Jackson until the next draft. They also have the rights to Tarpley, who is playing in Greece.

Tarpley, a potential force up front, is still only 28 and is eligible to apply for reinstatement to the NBA for next season. Officially, the Mavericks are not saying they will take him back. Unofficially, there’s no way they would pass.

“The problem with Roy is that he’s such a super talent that as soon as he stepped on the floor you won every game,” Adubato said. “It’s hard to turn your back on that type of talent.

“In the back of your mind, you know that you’re going to develop a lot of young players. If Jackson could be developed here, and you got Hodge and you got Rooks and you got Smith and you got Iuzzolino and you got a lot of young guys and you’re going to get a high draft pick next year, and then Roy Tarpley walks in the gym. . . . It’s like, look at San Antonio at 21-61 (in 1988-89). David Robinson walked in and they won 50. Roy Tarpley walks back in here next year, we win 50 games. I don’t care who we have, because Roy Tarpley is better than David Robinson when he first came out.”

But might the Mavericks be setting themselves up for more heartache?

“You better know it,” Carter said. “We’re not going to depend on him as a 12th player. We’re not going to depend on him at all. If he shows up and is ready to play, he could be a hell of an extra. I’m not saying he couldn’t be a superstar. But that’s the way I’ll look at it.”

Around Dallas these days, it’s all about perspective.