My main man! He’s done it! With another nine points in game six (a 105-95 Dallas victory), and a Finals average of six points on 52 percent from downtown, DeShawn stepped up and earned himself his first NBA Championship ring. It was about the only way a man with the SWAG of DeShawn Stevenson could possibly style on ‘em any harder, and with his three-finger hand signal now complete with a little jewelry, I figure this puts him near the top of the all-time SWAG rankings. He will never live up to the hype (one of those NBA draft sites billed him as the next Michael Jordan), and he’s most definitely a little off his rocker, but when it comes to somewhat unwarranted levels of sheer confidence and lack of give-a-sh!t, not many have ever done it quite like the one and only DeShawn Stevenson.
He hit his next two, too… and you best believe he was struttin’ like some sort of peacock…
Yup, he was feelin’ it last night… feelin’ damn good, he was. And can you blame the man? The poor guy has had a pretty rough life, and he’s made something of himself, so he’s just out there making the most of it, not givin’ a sh!t. You gotta love it! For those of you who have never heard the DeShawn Stevenson story, check this out real quick. Courtesy of Wikipedia:
DeShawn Stevenson was born in Fresno, California to Genice Popps and Darryl C. Stevenson. A year after DeShawn’s birth, Darryl Stevenson was hospitalized for threatening family members, allegedly attacking his brother with a butcher knife. Stevenson’s parents never married, although when the boy was 3, his father signed a court order agreeing he had a duty to support his son. Two months after being released from a Fresno County mental health facility, Darryl Stevenson held up a gas station with an accomplice who held a knife to a woman’s throat. Darryl was found incompetent to stand trial and wound up in Atascadero State Hospital. Psychiatrists diagnosed him as a paranoid schizophrenic. He eventually was placed on probation, but arrested again for kidnapping a woman in 1985 and jailed in April 1986. In 1993, when Stevenson was 12, his father Darryl murdered his own mother, Clara, by strangling her. Darryl Stevenson died in Corcoran State Prison of lung cancer at age 36 in 1999. Tattooed on his chest was one word: “DeShawn.”
No matter how much of a tool you think he is, come on, you can’t help but feel happy for the guy. The same can be said for Jason Terry, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, etc. I’m not the biggest Jason Terry fan in the world–you may recall that I called him a “chump” after he talked a bunch of super-lame smack midseason–but he was a key member of that Mavs team which suffered the devestating Finals loss to Wade’s Heat squad back in ’06, and he was also there for the Golden State debacle in ’07. He can put that behind him now, and keep his tattoo!
Jason Kidd has been the main man on two Finals losers… a pair of teams which never really had a chance, seeing as they would’ve had to defeat what was arguably the most dominant NBA team of all-time. At 38 years old, with the window closing fast, he was able to win a title without doing it the way a lot of 38-year-olds are forced to do it–by joining an already established contender as a bench player. Kidd has been the focus of some criticism in the past. After the Mavs suffered a few early exits from the postseason, people speculated that maybe the Mavs would’ve been better off keeping Devin Harris’s flopping ass. So much for that… Kidd hit a variety of big-time triples throughout these playoffs, and his leadership has been talked about by his teammates as one of the key factors in all of the comebacks they had to make to get to this point. Said Kidd upon winning the title: “I can’t believe the journey. The journey, the character of my teammates telling me they wanted to get me a championship. Tonight they came out and played well. I came here twice, this being my third time so third time was the lucky charm.”
As for Dirk Nowitzki, he’s the easiest to he happy for. The guy is such a hard worker, and he’s had an incredible NBA career which only lacked the title that he acheived last night. He’s often been blamed for being the main cause of the heartache his Mavs teams have suffered over the years. He’s received such labels as “soft”, “choke-artist”, etc, when a lot of the blame was probably unfairly placed. Dirk has been one of the best players in the NBA for years, and now, by defeating a group that consists of a two-time MVP, a Finals MVP, and a former franchise player, he has cemented himself as one of the greatest ever to do it. The Mavs are a good team, but let’s not act like he had a whole lot of help. Although he dropped a game-high 27 last night, Jason Terry had his share of struggles in this series. JJ Berea was pretty good last night, but he sucked for the first, what, four games? Aside from those two the Mavs don’t really have any other scoring threats. Dirk had to carry this team on his back down the stretch in most Maverick victories this postseason. Some of his shooting displays were absolutely incredible… the dude just makes shots that are simply unguardable. Off of one foot, falling away, hand in the face (hell, hand on the wrist in sime cases)… doesn’t matter, he made those shots… over, and over, and over again. He made ‘em because he works hard. The dude hits the gym and practices these shots that no one else has ever practiced. Big-time props to Dirk Nowitzki on silencing the critics, a group which used to include myself.
I can’t seem to find any noteworthy quotes from the Finals MVP… maybe that’s because he was too busy partying to do any talking. An $80K bottle of champaign? Goddamn son, that is winning.
So, you know the Mavs won, and you know how I feel about it… should I say a little something about how they won? I’m sure you all saw it yourselves, it was game seven of the NBA f@ckin’ Finals, but I’ll toss you a few bullet points anyway.
- Dirk Nowitzki went 1-12 in the first half, but the Mavs still led. How? The rest of the team shot 65 percent. Jason Terry was lighting it up, and DeShawn Stevenson had already nailed all three of his triples. Dallas’s 32 first-quarter points were the most scored in any period of the series.
- Not only did the Mavs out-shoot the Heat from the field, they edged them out on the offensive glass, 10-9. It doesn’t seem like much of an advantage, but keep in mind that they shot three percent better than Miami and played with the lead down the stretch. They came up with some key offensive boards that burned a ton of time late in the fourth, preventing any Heat run.
- Miami kinda sucked. They turned the ball over 16 times (only 20 assists). They clunked 13 of 33 freethrows. Dwyane Wade missed all four of his three-point tries as he went 6-16, and LBJ turned the ball over six times.
LeBron James… you will probably hear more about him than the damn Champions, so I’m just going to leave it at this: he led Miami with 21 points, but he wasn’t nearly aggressive enough down the stretch… again. He passed up a ton of open shots (in the third quarter particularly), and he quite honestly didn’t play with a whole lot of hunger. He played as if the Heat’s destiny was already set in stone. Maybe that’s because he thinks it was: “The Greater Man upstairs know when it’s my time. Right now isn’t the time.”
All I have to say to that is… come on son. Get the f@ck outta here with that bullsh!t. You didn’t play well, your team didn’t play well, so you and your team lost. No “greater man” had a damn thing to do with this. It’s all on you; well, you and your teammates. Let’s not forget that Dwyane Wade didn’t do a damn thing last night either. LBJ will take all the heat (no pun intended), but where was Pookie? He didn’t really attempt to activate any kind of beast-mode down the stretch himself. Miami looked dead last night. They played like they’d already lost, basically… at least that’s how it appeared to me.
I can’t take credit for making that, but I nearly died of laughter upon seeing it this morning. Thank you to Patrick Chewing of the Insidehoops forums for that one.
So, congratulations to DeShawn Stevenson, Dirk Nowitzki, and the Dallas Mavs. As for LeBron and the Heat… it’s gonna be a long offseason. I do believe they’re going to win multiple titles at some point, but as of right now they’ve failed… and that’s all anyone’s gonna want to talk about for the next couple weeks… if not months.
This will be my final recap post until next fall. I’m looking forward to the vacation. I love doing this, but I need to charge up… my battery is definitely running low. I’ll still post throughout the offseason, but not on a daily basis… so, that’ll do it! The 2010/11 NBA season is a wrap! Apparently Summer League has been scrapped due to a potential lockout, so, uh… well, enjoy the warm weather!
