The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Vinnie Goodwill on Why Dirk’s 2011 Title Run Changed Everything about his Legacy | 06.02

Episode Date: June 2, 2026

Bomani Jones and Vinnie Goodwill go back to the two NBA Finals that defined Dirk Nowitzki’s career: 2006 and 2011. They break down how Dirk changed the league, why the “soft” label followed him for years, how the We Believe Warriors loss stuck to him, and why that 2011 championship run completely changed the way we talk about his legacy. If you remember Dwyane Wade living at the line, the fake cough, the Heatles pressure cooker, and Dallas finally getting its revenge, this is the full Dirk story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 26 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 26 tracks, start your build at Chevrolet.ca. Wave. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube.

subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars, you only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday and sometimes it lines up so good that we kind of get to talk about two things at one time because it's all about the same dude. So I got my man Vinny Goodwill at ESPN here and we are going to talk about at once the 2006 finals and the 2011 finals and the connective tissue between the two being. Dirk Novitsky. Quietly, one of the more interesting careers that we've had.

I feel like very similar to Kobe Bryant that the version of the Dirk story that I feel like we tell now is so much less interesting than the actual story that came about at the time, but for whatever reason, we make it one dimensional. For Dirk, I think we make it one dimensional just because of what happened in 2011. But his whole career, like, you tell me if I'm wrong here, I feel like he is at maybe the most pioneering of the international players, right? And there were guys that, obviously, Kim Il-Lajuan had come before him, for

example. So he's not like he's the first international player, but he didn't play American college ball. And you tell me, if I'm wrong, I would argue of those guys, even if you're talking about Drozhen, Petrovich, any of them, nobody felt like he had more of a European

game than Dr. Nivisky did. And at that time, that wasn't that complimentary. No, it wasn't a compliment. It was I remember Barclay saying all this stuff about Golden State before Golden State won a jump shooting team can't win a championship? If you change the name to that to Dirk,

he would say the same thing. You know what I mean? He would say the exact same thing. And also remember, Barclay was the dude that offered Dirk a scholarship or, you know, an incentive to come play at Auburn. When he saw him play, I think, in the 1996

warm-ups to the Olympics, So that was two full years before he got to the league. And Chuck is like, oh, no, this dude is coming. But I don't know if he can win a championship. Like, Dirk isn't the greatest international player, right? But like you said, Pioneer, he's the one that you feel like you can make another one of, even though you can't make another Dirk. You can't make another Dirk seven feet tall with that high release, that level of touch,

young Dirk with that level of, you know, mobility as much as mobility as someone like him was going to have. But the heat weight, he changed the game in the way of, you know, I was looking at the two series we're going to talk about. And I was just looking at the spacing of the floor in both of those series. And even though it wasn't the pace and space sign, it was still reasonably sprint because you had to account for a seven-foot dude who could shoot threes and not just as a function. Because you hear seven-footers who could shoot, right?

You know, the Robert Oros, the Bill and Bearers, blah, blah, blah. But to have that be the way that you built your team and your franchise around, that was a big chance that Nelly took. Well, see, that's the thing. I feel like we have to start this story well before Dirk sets foot in the United States. And it starts with the crazy, kooky mind of Don Nelson, right? And so Nelson was a very interesting coach in the sense that he was pioneering in the ways that he wanted to play basketball and the new things he always wanted to try and experiment with sometimes at the expense of actually winning basketball games.

Right. Like, I think he retired at the all time winning his coach in NBA history. Nobody thought of him in that sort of way because there was always kind of this push and pull against performance of his teams. And the fact that he just kind of like fucking around and seeing what can happen. And I think a very important part of the Don Nelson fucking around, there was a seven-footer shooting threes that we don't talk about as much. Because he wasn't seven foot, he was seven six, and his name was Mnouh Bull. Don Nelson had Mnoubauds standing a zillion feet away from the basket on one end of the floor

and blocking shots on the other. And it seemed like a gimmick, but it actually turned out to be a glimpse into the future. And Nelson always I felt like had an eye toward that sort of European game of this idea. We're going to have a bunch of guys that can shoot and face the basket. And when you get to 98 when he gets him, now he's finally, got his guy. But I do think the part of this that we forget at this point is Nellie had been tinkering with this for a very

long time. No, and I'll take you back further than when New Bow, when he was in Milwaukee, Jack Sigma. We forget about those Milwaukee teams because they could never get over the hump of the 76ers and the Celtics. They're kind of lost the time, but

those teams that the Sydney Mankrefs and Terry Cummings when he was there for a few years. Paul Presley is point forward. Right. Marcus Johnson, I guess, ahead of that. Right. And Jack Sigma was there with that funky high release, that pump-ake, and he played the game. He could play the game in the post, but he played the game facing the room 15, 16 feet out,

and then start to take it back a little bit further. So before, even if you thought Malou Bo was a gimmick, right? It was evidence that he had been doing this 40 years ago. And then also remember, he had that disastrous. stint with the New York Knicks after Pat Riley left and he was trying that stuff there. But that just wasn't the place to do it. And that wasn't the team to do it with at that time. Well, I also think that that ties into what we're going to talk about with Dirk because

one thing that seemed to happen after the disaster extent with the Knicks. And for those of you who weren't around for this, this is after Pat Riley leaves, they hired Don Nelson. It's a big name coach, big name hire. and the problems were not on-court issues. They were off-court issues, and that squad was not here for Don Nelson. And basically, Patrick Ewing and them boys ran him off the job

because basically an NBA team decides if you're going to be the coach, and they decided that he was not going to be the coach. And Don Nelson appeared in that moment to decide, if I can at all help it, there will not be a black man on this team taller than me. No, there will not. No, there will not be. and you got to understand, Don Nelson, 6-6, wasn't a short man.

But you go look at some of those teams in Dallas. And it was like, hey, all the white guys seem to be taller than the coach, or at least in that ballpark. Anyway, Dirk Novinsky for him, he was like, hell yeah, there we go. Yes, I've got it. And he came to the league keeping it mind that, you know, it's one of those draft day trades that's not really a trade. But still, the other pick in the trade was Robert Tractor.

Because there were two trades in that, like, Jameson and Carter, they got flipped. Yep, 4 and 5. In that draft. And then we also had this. And the pick after Derk, interestingly enough, was Paul Pierce. Because this draft is a weird draft, a really weird draft. Well, Ola Candy went one. Yes, Mike Bibby too.

Bibby was two. Who was three? Van, no. Rayflare. France. Rayful. Wow. Another, another, another Nutry special, right?

Yep. Another Nelly guy. And then Jameson. and Carter. Remember, that was Bonzie Wells, went top 10, if I remember correctly, right? I think so. Paul Pierce fell in the draft. Jason Williams, Mike Chapplet. I think he went eight. Yeah, I want to say he went ahead of Paul Pearson, Dirk. Yeah, yeah. And the track the trailer, the late tractor trailer who was, you know. No, no, Tractor trailer win six, Jason Williams, went seven. Larry Hughes, who was that guy in college, went eight. Then Dirk Noviceky and Paul

Pierce, followed by Bonsie Wells. Like you said, weird draft. Like, totally weird draft. And not just in a way of, like, weird draft as in, okay, if we redrafted, it would look different. Of course, it would look different. But Paul Pierce being the guy who fell in large part because Kansas wasn't showing up in big games back then, you know what I mean?

And people thought that Paul Pierce wasn't going to show up in big games. And everyone should. Hey, man, you're going to be in shape enough to really be able to play it. And my understanding was that he was not exactly getting glowing recommendations for Roy Williams. I mean, well, shoot, Ray, wait, Ray, LaPrens win three, that was his teammate. Like, but we can all see. Two things. One, Rave did get glowing recommendations for Roy Williams.

And number two, college rate for friends was a beast. Yeah, no, no, that Kansas team was like, and I know we, like, somehow we wound up here. But that Kansas team was a monster. I think it never got past sweet 16 Yeah, it's crazy That was like Josh Barnes the point guard And Paul and Raythe Yeah, Jacques was in the early run of it

But it's rape for Francis Paul Pierce is really Rayford Francis Paul Pierce is all it is really That's all we really need to talk about Yeah, yeah yeah No, just like you said And that was the first That was the first post Jordan you know sort of

Mike's about to retire this league It's about to look different Sort of sort of thing And in comes this seven-foot guy that we never, there's no archetype for at that particular point. Like, that's the crazy part of all this. And they're telling us he doesn't play at all in the post. No.

He don't go in there. That's not what this is. He is a seven-foot-tall small forward was what they were selling us at the time. Like the idea of him as a power forward didn't come around until later. And the other thing with Dirk was, this did not take off immediately. He was 19 years old. old. And keeping in mind at that point, when you're drafting a guy who's 19 years old, the rest of the league is much older than two. There's just a lot fewer young guys that are in

the league. So he's 19 years old coming from a country that don't really play basketball like that. Like Germany is not a basketball hotbed by any stretch of the imagination. Ben, these numbers from his rookie year. And it was a 50 game season. He played 47 games, shot 40% from the floor, 20% from three. And average eight points a game. 3.4 rebounds a game in 20 minutes a game. There were not that many causes for optimism when it came to Rookie Dirk. Well, you also have to back this up a little bit frontal because the 90s Dallas Mavericks is a completely different,

like the way, completely different organization, the way we think of them. Like the way that they sit in basketball now, even with the post-Luc a drip that they get and the way that people look at them as a laughing stop now is a completely different way that they will look at as a lap. Sapping sock back then. Like, they were just two years removed from everybody believing that Jimmy Jackson and Jason Kidd were dating Tony Braxton at the same time.

Like, that was the most interesting thing about that team. Something that I've been told by both men individually. Did not happen. Never happened, okay? But that rumor was everywhere, dog. That rumor made it into Sports Illustrated. Like, it was just there that the whole team. Now, we know enough about Jason Kidd now to know anything could have broke up a team with Jason Kidd on it.

But at that time, and she, she played and threw it. Yeah, she was like, shit, I can sell some records. Right. Like, remember the name of her album was called Secrets. Secrets, right? That's what she, because remember, that first record, she had the shortcut, and she was a little bit modest with it. That second record, she put on that little bob wig and had on the white jumpsuit in the video. That was where was you?

with right there. Hey, in the words of how we said, nah, she had that shit on. She did. She did. People was like, yo, you seen that Tony Braxton video because you was in middle school. I was a senior in high school right before that. I was like, yo, you're seeing that Tony Braxton video? But the evolution of the Mavericks also easy for people to forget that they were seen as like the ideal expansion franchise in the 80s. They got good and stayed good. They were playing in conference finals. They had multiple all stars on the team. And then when the wheels came off, they were the worst. They were as bad as I can remember a team ever, ever, ever.

They were like Charlotte Hornets, 2012, 13 bad. Like, where you played nine games. Yeah, yeah. And they didn't, Jamal Bashburn was not a bad draft pick. Jason Keeb was the right draft pick. Jimmy Jackson wasn't a bad draft pick. He wasn't the bad draft pick. Like, it just, and then you put those three guys together.

In theory, you get the guy who's a shooter, you got the guy who's a slasher, you got the guy who puts it all together as the point bar. Jason Kitt went somewhere. Jamal Marshall Mafferman went to Miami, and they had to start from scratch. And then you're starting from scratch with no identity. And then you draft this dude. And then you got,

and then you still got Steve Nash sitting over there. But yeah, remember, this is part of that Don Nelson. No black guys taller to me. You remember when he got that job, he was talking all that shit. We old school over here, right? Like the next job really, really affected him. And so Dirk was part of the changes

that they were going to make. So Ricky Dirk didn't have it. Year two, Dirk. Hey, buddy, we're cooking with gas. Now we're scoring 17 points a game. Now we're putting up 38% from three. Now things are different. By year three,

Dirk is a third team all NBA guy, right? He hasn't made the All-Star team yet, but he's a third team NBA guy and they're winning 50 games. Like they won 50 games in his third year. This gets to rolling. and you mentioned Nash, when did they send Nash to Phoenix? Because they sent Nash to Phoenix for Michael Finley.

Right. Well, it's funny, Nash just, Nash started off. Oh, no, Nash, yeah, Nash was there when Dirk got there. Right, right, because they both had the, they were at the same press conference together. That's right. They had the French tips. Well, one of them had the French tips. Yes.

Maybe both of them did, right? But, yeah, he was, he was in Phoenix playing behind Jason Kidd and Kevin Johnson, which is like that's the greatest three-point guard triumbrant in NBA history at the same time. And then he goes there. And once he gets going, you got to remember, Dirk played 47 games in that lockout short and season.

That was a lot of games in a very little period of time. You didn't have a lot of time to practice or figure it out. You're 18 playing against these grown men. That was bound to happen. But like you said, once the year three got going, the numbers were better. I don't think they made out the first round to 2001. Like, but you could see that they were, like,

you could see that they were coming. And Dirk, what, once Dirk started to really put it together, and you're like, I don't know if you win a championship with this guy, but he's a guy that we can really start building him. Like, think about the Power Force that he was having to play on a nightly basis in the West. Carl Malone was the MVP in 99, he was still a reasonably affected player.

Rashid in Portland, Chris Weber. Like Kevin Garnett Kevin Garnett Timmy Like you like those are six dudes Just six in the West So you're playing 35 games a year Against those dudes

And you can't even bang back Enough ill-equipped in every way However None of them can guard you Right like the thing with dirt And I'd be curious to know How we would have treated this In real time now

Because by year three, Dirk was also turning into a bit of an advanced stats monster. It's interesting to look back at his career and realize and for me, this is a thing I point to a lot.

The number one predictor of MVP is winchairs for 48 minutes. And those two years when Steve Nash won the MVP, people talk about the first year Shaq should have wanted, right? And then that second year, that, what's his name,

Kobe should have wanted. But the guy that led both of those years was actually Dirk Novitsky. Like, he had become a better player that I think we had realized. And for whatever reason, we typically give people credit for putting losers on their backs and taking them to places they weren't going. And somehow with Dallas,

which really didn't have that many other dudes. Like Michael Finley, okay, right? The version of Steve Nash that they eventually got back for Phoenix. That's right. He came with Michael, with Finley, not traded for him. But anyway, those guys were okay. Okay, right? But this was, this was a bit more of a one-man ban that I think we gave you credit for. And I think it's just simply because he arrived with such a level of skepticism.

And we kept that skepticism up. Also, Mark Cuban comes in to this around 2001 or two somewhere in there. And so now everything around the Mavericks feels different. But they had an honest to God superstar that was doing honest to God superstar things that for whatever reason, we did not really think of as an honest to God superstar. you look back in his career into the path of getting to 06, it really is the path of a superstar making that climb because the spurs were the guys they had to go up against, right? And those who they were dealing with going up along the way.

And they took their Ls before they got there. So you touched on so much. Like, for one, just the archetype of, and I wasn't an MVP voter in 2006, I was in college. But the way that we framed what MVP were, I am a person who believes Steve Nash earned both of them MVP's, right? 2005, he changed the league.

He took the sons from, what, 32 wins to 60. And the only change was changing Stefan Marbury to Steve Nash. Yeah, it's kind of going to be an MVP. See the argument. That's it. And then in 2006,

you lose Amari Stademeyer, who was their advanced stats guy in finisher and everything else. You lose him for the whole season because he had microfracture surgery and you go from 62 wins to 56 and you don't really change them. Maybe, you know, there's a Boris Dio who plays a little bit more and Sean Marion who does a little bit more.

But Steve Nash is the guy there and he scores more. And remember, it's Boris Dio, but because they traded Joe Johnson, that was a sign and trade. It was not, it was understood that that was not a fair swap. Right, right. You lose Joe Johnson. I think I want to say who led the league in threes that year before. Like that was Joe Johnson who was catching and shooting, not just. Joe Johnson who was doing ISO Joe back then.

Like, it was a completely different way. And yet, and to your point, we seem to be stuck on Shack should have won an MVP when Shaq wasn't even Shaq no more. And Kobe Bryant, God rest and soul, led a team to a remarkable 47 wins. Right. We don't. Now, maybe if people knew that Russell Westbrook was going to win the MVP in 2017, because God forbid we had to give it to them because of our infatuation with the number

10, then maybe we would have given Kobe a lifetime achievement MVP in 2006 or whatever was. But your point about Dirk stands, it is the fact that we didn't respect the way that he kicked it. Yep. We did not believe that what he was doing was something that was sustainable and it could be validated in the playoffs. That's why the two series that we're talking about, I think, are going to be so, I think,

when I tell you that there are like the turning points in NBA history, like, you both of them. They bookend in a certain way. It starts something and it kind of finishes something. Like, you'll see what I'm talking about. But yeah, it starts, it's 2006 starts some shit. In 2005, Dirk put up 26.1 points, 9.7 rebounds. A block and a half and a steal again, by the way.

40% from three. Third in the MVP voting. and like your third best player is Josh Howard. You're getting into like Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, Eric Dan Pierre, there must have been no big white guys left. Keith Van Horn, right? Like this was, he was this guy and they only got to the second round. Okay, like I think that's important to note, but they won 58 games that year.

But the playoffs, it was 03. That's right. O3 is when they ran up against the Spurs and got to the conference finals. It gotten all the way. But let's think about this for a second. What we're talking about, 24-year-old Dirk Novice, got them. They ended that Sacramento shit, right?

Beat them in the second round. And they got there against the O3 Spurs, right? Who had just beaten the round before had ended the Showtime Lakers. Like, Dirk was doing the thing. They went 60 games in 03. And here's the other part. I don't know if you remember this. And tell me if I'm wrong, wasn't that the series that Dirk got hurt in the Western

Conference finals? I think you're right. And he didn't, they held them out. Because in also in 2003, that was the end of the Sacramento. That was Chris Weber tearing his knee up. I want to say in game four of that series. So it all was starting to sort of, it was all starting to book in at a point. Like that was the Nick Van Exel series.

What Nick had scored like 40 in two games in that series off the bench. Like Dallas looked like, okay, the Lakers ain't going to be here. And we're not really sure about this Spurs thing because the Spurs had not won since 99 in that lockout season. So we weren't sure that the Spurs were going to win three, four, five championships. there was reasonable expectation that the Mavericks could have at least wind up being there. And then I want to say Dirk heard his knee early in that series and Nelly held them out for the rest of the way

because he didn't want to take any chances on this young stud doing it and San Antonio goes on wins the championship and everything else. And that was as close as they had gotten for a while. Yeah. I mean, look, by now, Dirt has the Mavericks as a consistent 50 or maybe 60 win team. It's easy to forget this. They got there.

They were that. They were like that. And then we get to that 06 season. Another year where they won 60 games, they've done that weird thing the year before where they gave Avery Johnson the job and took it from Don Nelson, which Don Nelson never got over.

It becomes a very important data point later in this story. But, hey man, that 06 team was good. And they took out the spurs and the sun. on the way of the playoffs, on the way to the NBA finals that year. And Dirk, again, Dirk did not win MVP this year, but he did put up 26.6, nine boards, a couple of assists, and 90% from the free throw line, 40% from 3, 48 from the field,

on a team where, again, Marquis-Daniels was number four in minutes played on that team. Doug Christie was number six in minutes played on that team. This was not a great. Jason Terry's number two. This is not a great top to bottom team. Wait, hold on. I don't remember Doug Christie playing on the 06 mat. 35-year-old Doug Christie.

My brain is broken. I don't remember anything with Doug Christie past him punching Rick Fox on the chin. Oh, hold on my fault. He only played seven games for him. Okay, okay. That'll do it. Adrian Griffin, how did that? That sound more familiar?

Yes, yes, yes. That rings a bell. That ring, like the crazy thing, like you said, Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Terry, every Johnson as a head coach. Also remember this. They beat the Spurs in a game seven in overtime on the road as a defending champion and put them out. And those are the type of series that you look at when we looked at Dirk in 07 and 08. and even 09 when he had that failure against Denver,

I want to say, in the first round, we forgot that 06, he kind of got over the hump. Like usually in the same way that LeBron got over the hump against the Celtics in 11, and then we forgot that he got over the hump because he had the meltdowns. There's like steps forward, then steps back. But I thought to that point,

Dirk had conquered the dragon. He slayed the beast. Well, he had, right, in a way. And by the way, important to note about San Antonio, the way it went for San Antonio, and I even said this to Bruce Bowen's face, if they were going to lose the series, they were going to lose it immediately.

Beating San Antonio in seven, that was a thing, right? To get that done, they get to the finals against that version of the heat, which was this weird, rack, never has a team been built for one year, quite like that team was. They felt like the 1997 Florida Marlins,

right? When we just go get a bunch of dudes that used to be good at some point, maybe a couple of them are a little bit good right now. And let's just see how it goes, right? Fire the coach to start the year, everything else. Let's just see how it goes, okay? The Mavericks are up in that series,

2-0 after winning the first two games in Dallas. Handily. They're up at the end of this game to go up 3-0. Gary Payton hits this shot to tie the game at the end of regulation. Was it a regulation or did he put them up? No, no, no. Game 5 was overtime. game three he hit the shot to put him up too. I think the game was tired of like 97.

Yeah, he put them up two. It looked like that series was about to be easily the Mavericks. They didn't win another game. That was, and the crazy thing was, that was the series where Mark Cuban yells out, just yells at David Stern, your league is rigged after Dwayneway goes to the line a million times in game five. That was another overtime game. Like, game three, to have a 13-point lead not.

feels like, oh yeah, 13-point lead is like a five-point lead. But to have a 13-point lead in the fourth quarter of an NBA finals game back then felt like you were up 30 because there was no abundance of a three-point shot. And like you said, that team had old Antoine Walker, who was only 29, but it felt like Antoine Walker was 35, right? Alonzoa Mourney, 35, back end of Shaq, back in of Jason Williams, back in of Gary Peyton, young Eudonnas Hazam. When is it?

Edonis hasn't ever been a young dude on some team. All right, cool. He's the young guy there. But even then, that was six years out of college. Right, right. He was like 27 or something like that, damn there. And Dway. James Posey, forgot about it.

Wasn't he on that team? Yep, James Posey was on that team. And Dwayne Wade walked down the Dallas Mavericks after being down 2.7 games to nothing. That ain't two games to nothing. That's like 2.9 games to nothing at that point. and you don't win another game, and thus that starts what we are confirming about Dirk. Ah, man, look at me.

He too soft. They can't get it. They can't get it right. Let us throw in an important detail about that series that no Mavericks fan would allow us to ignore, which is their belief that they were playing eight on five in those games because Dwayne Wade was living at the free throw line, just throwing himself into the lane and they were calling it. But the thing was, most of those. were fouls. He was that quick. Like the one thing, and I was going back and looking at the series,

and I was like, man, he looked so much faster her back in 2006. And they had the stoppers, like Adrian Griffin Griffin was the guy who was supposed to be stopping him. Devin Harris, guy was supposed to be stopping him. Like they had defenders, like you said, Marquis, Daniels, Daniels, Josh Hart, all those guys. And he kept getting his shoulder and they kept having to file him. Yeah, like I looked at that one file The only file that I thought Was a little weird Was the file that sent Dwayne Wade

To the line to end of the game five Yeah But he literally drove through everybody And just flipped up something And maybe he got clipped on a leg Or whatever it was But it didn't look like he really got foul Now granted I didn't get this

Lapruder film and I'm like that But that was the one And I was like Yeah, I don't know about that one dog And he was, look People talk about Shay going to the line Brother I don't know how that

compares to what the way people feel about 2006. Boy, that was, we talked about that for a very long time, but we were this close to the, uh, anointment of Dirk and in this. And instead, it became Dwayne Wade, who was that guy. And coming up next, we're going to get to the 2011 finals, but for those of you who weren't there, buddy, a lot happened in between and not a lot of it was good for Dirk. The biggest stage in world soccer is here. then every goal changes everything. And now, Fanduil is giving you a reason to root for every single one. Introducing every goal pays.

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create the best beauty products for all people. Visit Loreal.com to learn more. All right, back with any goodwill talking about the Dirk Novinsky era in Dallas. 2007, we can just say this really quick. The Mavericks were the best team in the NBA. Dirt Novinsky was the best player in the NBA that season. But we never talk about the idea

that Dirk might have been the best player in the NBA, but I told you, the three straight years of leading the league in winchairs for 48 minutes, that's what the best player in the NBA does, right? Like that's, there's a looking back on it. There's a strong argument there. Like, who's better, KG or Dirk Novitsky? There's a strong argument now separated from the moment. It's a little easier to look at it and be like, yo, I think it might have been Dertnavinsky,

except they lost in the first round of the Warriors, who were coached by Don Nelson, who was super salty about what had happened. And it wasn't just that they lost, Vinny. It was the way that they lost, which was. was that band of rap scallions that the Warriors had, Stephen Jackson, Baron, Davis, Al, Harrington, Matt Barnes, and they basically just punked Dirk for the whole series. And Dirk did not, this is,

every time you sell me a big man that don't have a post game, it's like if you don't have a post game, there's no advantage to you being big. And he could never punish them. So they were just guarding him with six, five guys who were just getting in under his shoulders, and there was nothing he could do. They were punking him.

Like you said. Nelly made sure we are doing this 6-5 in Under League. Okay, Baron Davis, Jason Richardson, Mikhail Petrus, then Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes and all those dudes. Like, I'm going to take it even a step back to you, Bo. 2006 felt like the league legitimately was changing. And if Dirk was the best player in the league that had Kobe Bryant at his absolute individual peak,

we saw LeBron James get his first first. taste of the NBA playoffs that series against Washington where he basically won three games by himself. And took Gilbert Arena's heart out of his chest at the free throw line. You don't hit this. You know what's going to happen. You're going home.

I ain't never seen Gilbert Arena's brick free throws the way that he, he didn't miss him. He bricked the free throws at the crib and he said I'm going to pass it to Damon Jones. Wait, never mind. No, but just think about that.

Like the best of Coyer Bryant, the best of a young LeBron James, who I want to say was second in the league and scoring. Might have let the league in scoring like an 08 or whatever it was, but LeBron was coming. Duane Wade was coming. Like the league was changing, and Dirk was at individually,

the forefront of that, and then followed it up with an MVP and had to have the MVP awarded to him, not on the floor of American Airlines arena or whatever the hell it was called then, but because they got decisively put out in six. They could have got put out in five, if not for like some miracle stuff that happened in game five at the crib. And I've never seen, I'm trying to think, have you ever seen the team get punked?

No. The way that we saw the old seven Mavericks get punked. And they were an excellent team. They were a top five office, top five defense. By this time, Josh Howard is a really good player. They ran through. the league that year. They looked like they were taking the step that you make when you've made the finals the year before and it doesn't quite go right and they had clearly been kind of

stair stepping it up a little bit to get to where they were. And we never looked at him, not never, but it took a while for us to ever look at him the same again. And it was really just because those we believe warriors as they called them, it wasn't just that they beat. It was that particular set of dudes and the way that they got down. And once again, Don Nelson, who seemingly knew, you know, they might be a little

soft over there. That team with Jerry Stackhouse on it. They might be a little soft over there. See what happens. And they did it. They just punked them. It looked like a team from the suburbs going to the hood. Yep. And that team with Jason Terry, Josh Howard, Jerry

Stackhouse, Eric Danpier. It's not like it was one guy. It wasn't even talking about the team. It was just about Dirk and it was a colossal failure from the best player on the team. There's no other way to look at it. He failed them. And it was funny, because that was at the point that we could acknowledge, oh,

Dirk is the guy. Like, he won MVP. His team won, what, 67 games or whatever it was. We were just coming around to saying, Dirk is it. Dirk is the leader of all this, not just in an advanced stats kind of way, but the validation of it, Whether they got to the finals or not, I don't know if that had to have happened, right?

They could have taken a step back. They took the step back and got punked in a way, I want to say, and since the start of seven-game series, they were the first team. In the 1-8? They were the first. No, in a seven-game series. In a seven-games.

In the seven-game series, they were the first. Like 94 Sonics, 99 Nixon Heat. Yeah. and then later on it was a spurs losing to Memphis, I think, in 2011. Like, it's funny, the stuff that sticks to people, we don't put 2011 on Tim Duncan or some of the Spurs meltdowns on Timmy the way that we put everything on dirt. Dirt catches all the playoff hell.

Now, to be fair, the reason is we thought after 11 that that Spurs thing was over and then they rattled off an incredible three-year run that it's easy to lose sight of because they lost that series to the three-year run. Thunder and then they lost that game six and seven to Miami. But we thought they were finished and they picked that whole thing up with the arrival of Kauai Leonard, which I don't think we emphasize quite enough. And that whole thing went on a run. But you're right.

This stuck to dirt, but the reason it stuck is unlike the Spurs who picked things up on the other end, they went out there and it basically happened again the next year. Now, 08, as I recall, was a very interesting year in the West because everybody won 50 games. I'm not mistaken, all 18s that went to the postseason, 150 games, and the separations between them were like a game here and a game there. But it was also interesting because the order of how they finished did feel like the natural hierarchy of what the league was. It didn't feel like they were all the same level of good, but they were all really bunched. punched up and I want to say the Mavericks at the 7th C because they went up against the Hornets

with that was the Chris Paul year. That's before Chris Paul hurts his knee. Yes. And we learned that you give Chris Paul any dude that can jump straight up in the air and he will throw him oops. Well, they beat the, no, I was going to say. They beat the brakes off of Dallas. That was the David West.

I'm going to touch your chin. He walked up on Dirk and touched his face three times while talking to him and Dirk stood there and listened to every word of it. And I've talked to David about this thing. There was an elbow situation. And David West said that he had had enough of that. But that image of Dirk getting his face touch stuck,

it's like, damn, y'all got punked again. And then the next year, the part that nobody seems to remember. I know where you're going. And he would never be allowed to forget right now. How many people are? right now, I would love to know if there was a way that I could get like real time reaction for the audience of two sets of people. One, people who have no idea what I'm about to mention. Two, or actually like three sets, two, people who are like, I feel like I know what he's about

to talk about, but I don't know. And three people like, oh, snap, I forgot. And so for those of you who don't know, Dirk have fell in love with a scammer. And honest to God scammer, whom he met because she had been running game on all kinds of athletes. The one that I remember is Tony Banks. Yes. I forgot about that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was the one name I remember, but she had this game, and this is before Dirk was showing up to the arena with the plates. We didn't know with the four rat plates. We didn't know what Dirk was about, right? The story was that this woman called Dirk and said, oh, wrong number.

I was trying to call my brother. But hey, what's your name? Dirk. And he went for it. I got so much mileage out of that on the radio, boy. He got, for a while there, he was like, man, that boy messed around the guy. Dirk, he fell in love with an honest guy scammer. Like, she had been, I think she may have had charges.

She was stealing jewelry. Like, she was doing all of this. But the world found out about this during the playoffs. I think they found out about during the Denver, was it the Denver series? Or was Denver in 10? But I felt like they found about in the first round in 20. 2009. It was in 2009. It was in 2009 because the first round they beat the breaks off the spurs. That's when the spurs were in the process of making a transition. Right?

Okay. Okay. Like they were changing the offense up. They realized they had to add some of that Phoenix stuff, but they ran the spurs out of there. I can't remember which series it was against the one year the Nuggets did something. But that was hanging in the air the whole time that this woman ran this game on Dirk. And what's his man's name? The dude from Germany to shoot coach? Like all these people are trying to get her out of Dirk's life, but Dirk was like, no, but I love her. Oh my, oh my God.

Somehow that has been completely lost to history. Nope. That this thing happened. We don't talk about that no more. I'm just telling you, Dirk was down bad after 06, man. Everything was going wrong. Dirk was the mark. Lost in the first round.

Somebody touching his face. We found out that he lacked discernment. Dirk was the mark. Like, like, how do you, how does, how does, how does, how does, how does, I'm trying to figure out how a woman, like, this, let's just go back. I got so many questions about how this woman scammed him, right? Like, hey, finding Dirk's number. Dirk answers the phone of a number he don't know.

I don't know who answers phone calls of numbers that they don't know. I get, but, you know, this is 2008, 2009. You know, you just answer the call that's on your screen. and then she says that and you have no like spidey sense of this. I'm trying to call my brother. Huh, it's interesting. Your brother has a number that's just like mine except the number is off. Don't you need to call your brother?

No, I'd rather talk to you. What a lucky day for her. Right? What a lucky day for her that the wrong number turns out to be mega millionaire Dirk Nevinsky. And by the way, who told her what Dirk liked? Or did she just throw it against the wall

and just see what might happen? I think there's probably evidence that Dirk had a type before. Yeah, but I don't know. I mean, but you know what, though, man,

she was in the game like that. So she would, you know, she would know the thing, but she made that happen. She eventually went to jail. Here's what Dirk did in that series against Denver,

by the way. Do you remember the numbers he put up? I don't remember the numbers. I do. I don't remember. I did not remember them exactly, but I remembered them generally, and I'm going to read them off to you

because this is what's been lost in the, face of all that pressure in the cauldron of all this embarrassment. People like me laughing at him in front of the world, 34.11, 11.6, four assists the game of 53 from the floor, 39 from three, and 92 from the line in the face, all that dirt's off, all that dirt crumpled under pressure. Dirt stood up in that moment. He was like, hey, man, I can't let it take everything from it, big dog. No, and that was a series against Kenyon Martin, if I remember correctly, right? Yes, yes.

I remember part of that. The only reason, the only thing with that series I remember is Dallas was up in a game and they were supposed to file Carmelo late and they didn't file them. What, they didn't file him hard enough and he took a three, made a three, they didn't win the overtime. I might have been like game three or something like that. Like that was the one year that Denver put it together with Chauncey Bill's when Chonsey got traded there for Ann Iverson. And that was the year that they made it to the West Finals and all that stuff.

And then that they went. they went out like some suckers against the Lakers. That last game against that, that game six they played against the Lakers. That was a one, two, three, Cancun classic right there. Yeah, that was, was that the game where your boy,

Dante Jones was out there trying to trip Kobe? Might have been. I mean, well, look, Dante Jones, a duke guy trying to trip somebody is not like, that's not a unique occurrence. So that could have been game four. But I remember Kobe put Kobe, Kobe paid by like 40.

The crowd was cheering for them. And I'm like, This is how y'all going out? Like, they had a tie series after the first two games. I never thought they were going to win the series, mind you. Right. But I thought they were going to put up something better. And at that point, Bo, you're thinking Dallas is one of those teams

that will have very good regular seasons, but will never, ever, ever put it together to the point that they are anything more than a 50-win team and a playoff nuisance. We thought that they would go away of the Minnesota Timberwolves in the years' asses. after Kevin Garnett won the MVP. Like some decent enough regular seasons, but you're not the guy anymore

and you can't carry this team beyond anything. Yeah. I mean, 2010, they lost in the first round. Yeah. We lost in this first. Like, it felt like it was over, right? Like, he had his peak and it was right. Like, he's in his early 30s at this point.

Like, this was at a time where I also think we looked at the early 30s a little bit differently and this is like decline time, right? Like, oh, man, you guys had your chance. This roster is going to be whatever it was. and then came 2011, they won 57 games that year. Like that everything in the league that year centered around the Miami Heat. If you were not there, guys, there's no way for us to explain to you just how insane things were around that team.

They were the lead story on Sports Center every single day. And the Mavericks, who I want to say were the three seed that year into playoffs. buddy they put on a run through the playoffs like we have rarely ever seen again at a time where we're not really thinking that this is possible with this set of dudes because their window was closed it was also a bit of a transitionary year in the west like the young thunder are starting to rise you talked about this earlier the spurs were the one seed but they lost to the grizzly so the one seed was out of there at the end of the first round but in the end that team ran through the postseason and only lost three games, that whole postseason.

No, I'm going to give you... Oh, to end it the Lakers, ended the repeat Lakers situation. Mm-hmm. No, think about like this. Think about it. You said about the heat in 2006, there was never a team made more for one year. And I will present to you these dudes. Because think about the ages of the 2011 Dallas Mavericks.

Dirk is in his early 30s. Jason Terry is in his early 30s. 30s. Jason Kidd is in his mid-30s. Pajor Stoyakovich is on the back end. Sean Marionnear. Karam Butler was there for the start of that and then hurt himself. He was on the back end. DeShon Stevenson, you're thinking of all the names, Tyson Chandler, right?

That was a team that came together, and they didn't start off the season like the 94. Sean Stevenson. That's what I said. Deshawn Stevenson. Like, they didn't start off like the 94 Rockets. You know, they started like, well, 15 and O. And everybody, and then they kind of, people kind of forgot how great they were to some degree, right? This was like that.

Everything was centered around is LeBron and the Heat going to get to the finals and see Kobe and the Lakers or see Coe or see the Thunder. And we didn't think the Thunder were going to get there, but we could entertain the thought. But we were thinking, Lakers and Heat or Lakers or Heat and Spurs or whatever it was, we were not thinking of the rag-tag, old-ass, Dallas Maver's. Remember, even in that first round series against Portland, Brandon Roy had the last great game of his career in a fourth quarter comeback, and we were like,

yep, this is who they are. This is who Dallas is, a team that will never be able to get there, and then they beat the absolute breaks off the Lakers. The breaks, the J.J. Barrea getting

flung in mid-air by Andrew Bidam. Made Andrew Bidham. Made Andrew Bottom tap. Like, that was the moment. They fired Phil Jackson. It was so bad. They fired Phil Jackson. Remember Phil Jackson tried to punch Paul Gassau in the chest or something like that during this?

I think I read something like a wolf was trying to wait, Paul. Phil was trying to wake up Paul Gassar. And it was nuts. Like, that was, I want to say, was that the most embarrassing from a performance way that a champion has ever gone out? It's up there. It's up there. Like, it was, it was bad, man. Like, it was, they completely.

completely slammed the door on the whole era after that game was open, after that was done. Like they, they ran through it quietly, the 11 Mavericks very similar to the 06 heat. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Yep. You know, in terms of that construction and everything else, and by the way, now they get to play the heat

and the heat, I don't know about you. I did not think going into that year that the heat, I thought the heat were going to lose in the second round because the law, the weaknesses they had on the roster were at point guard and inside. And I was just like, you're going to get to somebody that's going to do something with that.

And I thought it would be Boston in the second round. But then Dway, Pop Rondo's arm out of joint, and they were never the same after that. But the heat had gone through enough of those challenges. LeBron, I think they went in five against the Bulls, with LeBron really coming up big at the end of games in that series. And it looked like, oh, okay, they're going to make it happen. And the heat, they left Miami split.

Heat one game three in Dallas, up to one. and they never won another game. Now, I don't want to make our focus on this, on LeBron James, because that's the way that everybody looks at that. It was without question the most embarrassing set of circumstances of his life, his basketball life, at least. There's no way around that.

Right. But on the other side there was Dirk, and those boys did it. They got it done. It is almost one of those things where, like, for one, those 2011 playoffs was so, rich. Like I don't think we realized when we were in it. Like LeBron getting past the Celtics, we thought, okay, he's done it now. Like they beat the Celtics in five. And LeBron

put out the Celtics in game five. They were down like six in the last few minutes of the game. And LeBron went on like a personal 10-0 run where he looked bigger than the floor, right? I don't know what way to say it, but physically he looked larger than the floor in which he was playing on. And then they go and play Chicago who had the best record in the league and had the MVP, and LeBron got in that stance

and shut the Bulls down or shut Derek Rose down in the last five minutes virtually of every one of those games. There was no reason to believe going into that series. Even after game two, where Miami led by 15 points

and Dway hit a quarter three in front of Dallas's bench and LeBron started premature celebrating. It wasn't until then where you felt like Dallas woke up. And Dallas legitimately woke up in that moment, up, fit, down 15. It was like they were exercising the demons of 2006.

They came back and won that game. I want to say Dirk hit the game winner. I want to say he spun around Eudanus or spun around Bosch for a game-winning lefty layup. And then they just, game three happened, right? Chris Bosch hit the baseline jumper on the right side to win game three. but it never felt like Miami got in front of that series.

It never felt like Dallas was in control and it was going to be a matter of time. Even the game, Dirk got sick. Don't forget, speaking of sick, the Dwayne Wade, fake cough walking in the arena, mocking the idea that Dirk was sick. Because little did we know because we didn't think about it that much. There was a real live robbery going on there.

Dirk and Dwayne did not like each other. They had the finals that had gone on. before. Like this, this had been a thing. There was quiet beef that people didn't really know. And it's funny hearing them talk about it later where they're both like, yeah, yeah, I didn't really. I didn't really like him. I ain't rock with them at all. Yeah. And the

thing about it is, two guys that everybody likes. Like, people love Dwayne Wade. People love Dirk. They did not like each other. The coughing, like to me, and think about it, we put so much of that on LeBron.

When it was Dwayne who was, actually the one that was doing most of the instigating. And we talk about it a little bit. That series, if Duway Wade, if the Heat win that series, we look at Dwayne Wade totally different because that's a second finals MVP. That's four rings, arguably four rings, two finals MVP's. Who knows how you move as far as your relationship with LeBron if you take that step back and everything else?

Like, it took for Dallas to win that series. I don't think the Heat gave it a way. I think Dallas took it from them. And we got to give Dallas a lot of credit because they just came in waves. Duane was bawling. He was brilliant. But he's brilliant.

Look, Dwayne Wade, whole 2011 season, home boy Hall of Fame, right? Because he sat up there with LeBron. LeBron was using Du Wade, like the cats be using their children. Come with me to every press conference, right? Maybe doesn't make things. A little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was basically it, right? But Dwayne did that for him. And then when LeBron coming up short in the finals, Duane was coming up strong at every turn. Like think about, think about, in fact, I don't even know how to imagine it. What would we have done if they had won a championship and Duane was MVP and LeBron and played as poorly as he had? Right.

Like, I don't, it would not have saved LeBron because I think we still would have been on him in the ways that we had, but he still made it so much easier for him. And Dirt snatched that whole thing away. And by the end, had America on his side. And then we had to look up and be like, damn, I guess Dirk ain't soft, huh? Remember that? We used to say Dirk was all.

We were just saying it the year before. He washed everything away. I always say, is it him or is it Paul Pierce? I think it may be Dirt, where that one ring did more for their future reputation. Because to me, the ring helped us put Paul Pierce in a place that he would not have been otherwise. But with Dirk, it put him into a place that looking back on it,

he should have been. No, no, I'll take it a step further. Them, 2008 put Paul Piers. Pierce in a place, like, oh, man, he really is good. But we never thought that much of you to begin with to some degree. Right. 2011 saved Dirk from the abyss. Dirk was in the abyss.

Like, they rose to the same place, but Dirk had a much further way to go in terms of public perception because he was thought of very highly in 2007. You won the MVP, and then you lose, then you lose, then you lose. It's like, man, Dirk is an afterthought. And then if you put out in that year, you put out Kobe. and the Lakers, and Kobe was still Kobe, right? Like, he was still a reasonable version of himself in 2011. You put out Kobe.

Then you put out the Young Thunder. Remember, the Young Thunder won game one of that series, and then you walked them down four in a row. And then you put out LeBron and Wade and Bosch. When you talk about one-year runs or however you want to put it, whatever skins you got on your playoff wall, I don't know if there's anybody that's got a one-year run of playoff skins on the wall,

the way to dirt cast those playoff scans. Nobody. And look, man, and all of this, we have to keep this in mind involves stereotypes, right? So, like, 07 would have been like,

what if a black person was supposed to go get a Nobel Prize? But he missed it because he was late. And the reason that he was late is because he was over there with a 40 ounce

and a slice of watermelon. And he just could not tell him, himself away from from from from from from the from those those negro treats that's what it was like some word about it that's what it was like the way that dirk lost in 07 right like like all like he lost in the most stereotypical fashions all those years it was all just in the most stereotypical fashions you can imagine all the way down to this dude from another country hill no shit he got scaled like all of it every every single big of it was just like this stereo. Central casting. Central casting, dog. Right. Every single bit of it, man. And now people raise the question as to whether or not

Durr Nabinsky is one of the 20 best players in the history of the NBA, which by the way, it's not as crazy as it sounds. When you go back and look at a bit of it, 20, look, it's a lot of dudes that I'm played in the NBA, right? But he is an upper echelon, all-time great, and I contend perhaps more beloved as the face of a franchise

than any franchise's face of the franchise is. Hmm. That's... Like, it's tough. They love him down there, man. It's funny. I remember, because this was right around the time

that me and you got cool. So, like, the trick for Bowles Morning Jones was, this is funny, you would do three hours, right? Yep. And after the first hour was finished, like, it would upload or do it, download or whatever it was.

So if I'm on a plane, you could be on hour two and I'm listening to hour one on a flight or something like that, like on my Blackberry. This will show you how long ago it was. And I want to say you brought up before the 2011 finals. You said, Dirk Novitsky is one of the 20 best players in the history of the NBA. And I'm like, man, I just meant Bo, but I wanted to ask him, is he high? Like, I was literally thinking, I was like, twit him. And then once it happened, I was like, oh, yeah, he kind of fits.

It's one of those things that you think about, but when you go down the list of the players that he's with, like the tier of players that he's with, he belongs somewhere between 18 and 25, right? Yeah, it's there. Like I say, as we look back on it, you couldn't trust Kevin Garnett to go win the game for you. No.

You could trust Dirk to do that. And Kevin Garnett is an all-time great player, right? But Kevin Garnett is a role player in a superstar's talent, right? He's a superstar caliber. role player, and that is not an insult to anybody that's out here. Like, Kevin Garnett getting to Boston and being like, I'm the number three is the point that I'm making, right? Like, he could, he had a team where he could be the leader in the way he needed to be the

leader without you asking him to do things that weren't necessarily what you needed. But I do believe there's a tear that you can't quite get to if you're not the guy that we give the ball to when it's there to make it happen, unless you Bill Russell, right? Like, there's a place you probably can't get. Dirk could get to that place. and Dirk consistently got his teams to these places, obviously, except for the times that he didn't. But he did it.

And they were America's basketball team after they won that. They had the championship celebration in Miami at Live, where Cuban just sent them a million dollars and said, we pulling up. They partied in a city all over, all over them. Pulling up at your trap, taking over your trap. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean, the heat, by then, the heat tapped.

They made the heat tap. I think you look at playoff basketball. Maybe we don't do a good enough job explaining, like, not stamina in terms of like a physical stamina or even like a mental, like an emotional stamina that you have to have in going through this. At some point, you're just like, this is enough. Like, we're not going to do this.

They have it more than us. Y'all got it. And it looked like that's what the heat said. Y'all got it. And it wasn't any one player. Like, LeBron was just in his head, and that was the J.J. Barreya series where he couldn't back down J.J. Barrea,

even though it might have been a grand total of, like, three plays. And we just turned that one vision into, man, LeBron ain't got no post game, which he didn't have. But, you know what I mean? Like, we turned that into, we extrapolate that the same way that we extrapolated on Dirk. It was like they reversed roles. Dirk and LeBron reverse rolls from 2006 to 2011.

And if it was one person who understood, oh, he's curling up, We got to take advantage here. It was Dirk Novitsky. He knew what time it was because he was that man on the other side not five years ago. And if he think about this, what would we think of Dirk if they didn't win in 2011? Right. What will we say about his career now? Like he would be in the tier where he got to the finals, which is very important.

So that keeps him out of the James Hardin tier. And for those of you, James Hardin went to the finals in 2012, not the same and you know it. right not not the same and you know it and by the way it'd been better off if he hadn't gone everybody would have been happier if he hadn't gone in the 2012 finals except for the miami heat they were glad and and some people on south beach yeah i was about to say club owners are probably very glad yes that james hardin was for that career is going to be hilarious to look back on um but now man this was the one man i've had a good time with this with viti goodwill check him out on ESPN covering the NBA

and you get to watch the NBA finals or cover the NBA finals while also sleeping in your own bed for much of the time. I don't know about that because with the World Cup happening, I might have to get a hotel

a little bit closer to Madison Square Garden because I'm not trying to get caught this gridlock. Oh, damn, I hadn't even thought about that. Told you ain't have to live in no damn New Jersey. Nice to have me, Bo. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on The Right Time. We do this four days a week.

Ryan Brumley, heading everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line 3-2-3-5-9-6-7-67. Remember, follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days.

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