It didn’t turn out quite the way they planned.  All the hype is over.  All the talk is silenced.  The “decision” now means absolutely nothing, at least for this year.  Dirk Nowitzki and the Dallas Mavericks stole the spotlight away from LeBron James and the Miami Heat on their home court to win the franchise’s first ever NBA championship.  It’s a fitting end for a player in Nowitzki that has been labeled as being soft throughout his career.  Well, Nowitzki was anything but soft in the NBA finals, and the entire playoffs for that matter, and put his team on his back, making big shot after big shot and leading them in a way a lot of haters never thought he would.  And while Nowitzki and his team hoist the championship trophy, the Miami Heat are wondering just what happened to their so-called dream team.

But isn’t that what’s great about sports?  It’s not always the best team or the team with the most superstars that win.  It’s the team that is the best at coming together and fighting through all the trials and tribulations during the season.  It’s the team that puts everything together at the right time.  And this season, that team was the Dallas Mavericks. They swept the defending champs in the Los Angeles Lakers and dominated their way to the NBA finals, beating a team in the Heat that most thought would win it all with no problem.  Well I must say, it’s nice to see a team win it all that actually deserves it.  And it’s also nice to say that team wasn’t the Heat.

Call me a Heat hater.  Call me a LeBron hater.  Call me what you will.  But I have no problem not rooting for a team that was assembled the way the Heat were this season.  They signed what some feel like is the best active player in the league to a team that already has one of the top players in the league with the sole intention of winning a championship.  You can’t really hate on them for doing so because desperate times call for desperate measures.  But if you are like me and you enjoy seeing the teams that are supposed to win fail, you enjoyed witnessing how this season ended.

And can I also add that the comparisons of LeBron to Michael Jordan need to stop right now?  I know I’ve already addressed this issue, but the way this series turned out just makes my argument that much better.  LeBron totally disappeared in the fourth quarter of the past four games of this series, which is something you would never ever see out of MJ.  You can say, well Dwyane Wade had the hot hand for the past few games and was a better option when the game was on the line.  There’s no argument there.  But the difference is that MJ always had the hot hand and there was never a better option when he was in the game.  That what makes you great.  You are selfish and you take the shots that matter most because there is no doubt in your mind that you’re going to close out your opponent.  LeBron isn’t on that level.

But despite all the talk about LeBron and the Heat’s failure to meet expectations, these next few days belong to the Mavs.  They played through adversity all season and made the non-believers believe.  They finally got the championship monkey off their back.  Dirk finally got the championship that puts him on a new level as a player.  Jason Kidd finally got the championship he’s been playing so long to achieve.  It’s been an interesting journey for the city of Dallas and the franchise as a whole and it’s fitting that it ended the way it did.  Congratulations to the Dallas Mavericks.  You guys deserve it.

Submitted by Steve Giles