Dirk Ist der Vogel ... Nicht (Dirk is Bird ... Not)

It is time to answer the comparisons that just won't end - Dirk is Bird. 
Let's start with the obvious - they're both tall. They both can nail it from deep. They can both rebound.
And what appears to be vital to any and all comparisons in the NBA - they're both white. So apparently that makes them the same guy.

The rest is up to you ...

Allow us to compare these two basketball icons at the same point in their NBA careers:

Dirk Nowitzki
Age: 32
Height: 7-0
Weight: 237 
Race: White
Hometown: Wurzburg, Germany (pop. 127,000)
Famous Historical figures from Wurzburg: Well, Alfred Jodl but I'm guessing the chamber of commerce people aren't bragging about this; but Wilhelm Rontgen, who discovered X-rays is from here. So that's a good thing.

Reg season:
Games: 993
PPG: 23
RPG: 8.4
APG: 2.7
BLG: 1.0
3-Pointers: 1197-3145

Post Season:
Games: 118
PPG: 25.9
RPG: 10.4
APG: 2.6
3-Pointers: 132-343 

NBA Titles: 0
NBA Finals Appearances: 2
NBA MVP Awards: 1

Larry Bird
Age: 32
Height: 6-9 
Weight: 220
Race: White
Hometown: French Lick, Indiana (pop 1,800)
Famous Historical figures from French Lick: Former Sac Kings coach Jerry Reynolds is from here.

Reg season (remember Bird started his pro career later than Dirk)
Games: 718
PPG: 24.9
RPG: 10.2 
APG: 6.1
BLG: 0.8
3-Pointers: 455-1206

Post Season (Bird did not play in playoffs when he was 32)
Games: 145
PPG: 24.5
RPG: 10.7
APG: 6.4
3-Pointers: 72-204

NBA Titles: 3
NBA Finals Appearances: 5 
NBA MVP Awards: 1

Skinny
The emphasis on the 3-point shot is much greater now in Dirk's era than in Birds. There are more playoff games played in Dirk's era than in Bird's.
There is a much greater emphasis on defense in Dirk's era than in Bird's.

What does it all mean? They're both big white dudes who could kill it from deep, but Bird was the better passer, and better trash talker.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com 

Thursday Hangover: Dirktacular; Dirkifying; Dirk Is German For "Pippa"

1. A few hours after the Mavs handed the Thunder another soul-crushing loss and it's clear their mission is something far greater than that of winning their first title.

The Dallas Mavericks are Hickory from Hoosiers. Beating the Miami Heat represents all that is wrong with sport. Maybe a little hyperbolic, and everyone is getting paid a fortune here, but beating the Heat is for all the other franchises that will never be able to do it. 

2. Is there a bigger dork than Mark Cuban?

3. Still can't believe these numbers. Below are the rebounding totals from every game in this Mavs/Thunder series.

Game 5: OKC 49-44
Game 4: OKC 55-33
Game 3: OKC 45-37
Game 2: OKC 38-37
Game 1: OKC 35-33 

4. Not to hold your breath but the Rangers bullpen may finally be coming together. The Rangers relievers have a 2.89 ERA in the last 12 games.

4.5 The Stanley Cup's East Finals is going to have a Game 7. The Lightning are going all the way with Boston.  Someplace NHL boss Gary Bettman is a little sick. A Vancouver/Tampa series will be wonderful for the frequent flyer miles, but horrendous for TV ratings.

 5. Apparently somebody won American Idol last night. I want Paula Abdul back to sing Straight Up. Jennifer Lopez needs to stop this judging thing and return doing what she does best - dancing on In Living Color as a Fly Girl.

 

6. This Houston columnist thinks Kevin McHale may be good for the Rockets.

7. The TCU baseball team lost the opener in the MWC tournament. What has happened to the preseason No. 1 team in the nation?

8. This girl from Glee feels lucky to play the part of Santana.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com

Long Lost Brothers: Jeff Van Gundy and Beaker

Watching the four lettered telecast of Mavs v. Thunder and it hit me that former Knicks coach and current NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy has another brother, Beaker from the Muppets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com 

Magic Johnson ... Please Quit Talking

Hard not to like Magic Johnson. But for the love of the English language, he really needs to stop talking.

We as TV sports viewers don't necessarily expect Tom Wolfe to provide commentary for a football game, or any game, but Magic Johnson often makes Emmitt Smith sound like an English teacher.

Here are a pair of Magic lines from tonight's post-game telecast on the four-lettered after the Mavs win over the Thunder.

"You gotta credit their defense and their not-quit attitude."

And my favorite, "He proved to be the different maker at the end of the game."

These are verbatim lines. And these are mild by comparison to some of his other winners.

Now, does Charles Barkely butcher the English language on the same level as Magic? Yes. But at least he does it with a smile, a wink and laughs at himself.

Doing TV isn't easy. Talk in front of a camera long enough and you will sound like a boob. Even the best botch a line or two. They just don't do it every night.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com

Mavs Are Going to Win the NBA Title*

There is nothing statistical to back up the proclamation that the Dallas Mavericks will win the 2011 NBA championship* - in fact if they play the Heat they will be decisive dawgs - but they have an "It" thing and a mojo element that all title winners share.

There is just something going on with that team, and with Dirk, right now that says they are going to win it all.

"It feels good to finally get back," Dirk said after the game. "This time we can hopefully finish the job."

Unless the Bulls pull off one of the greatest comebacks in recent memory, the Mavs will play the Heat. And they will be out-matched against the Heat. They will be playing another superior athletic team. They will see better defense than they have seen in any previous playoff opponent thus far. And they will have to play better defense to win.

"It's been a long stretch here after the year we lost in the Finals. Been trying to get back to this stage ever since and fell short a bunch of times," Dirk said. "This is a bunch of veterans that wants to play and that isn't selfish."

The way the playoffs have broken for the Mavs, and the way Dirk is playing, they have the "it" factor that says they will win it all.

( * these opinions are fluid )

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com

A Texas Rangers Factoid That May Surprise You

ARLINGTON - Michael Young was thrilled to see he would be playing a day game today, mostly because it was going to allow him to go to tonight's Mavs Game 5 against OKC.

But the Rangers have a charity event tonight, so "I can't go. I was so pumped to see the schedule worked out this way and then ... Ohhh, gotta do a charity thing."

He was kidding about being bummed to do a charity event. Seriously.

What Young has to feel good about these days is the fact that his team has been hurt, had poor offensive production outside of himself, and is in first place in the AL Joke.

I realize its catchy to say this team isn't as good as the '10 version, but take a look at the standings on this day in 2010, and 2011:

AL Joke May 25, 2010
Texas 26-20
Oakland 23-23
Anyplace but Anaheim 22-26
Seattle 17-28

AL Joke May 25, 2011
Texas 26-24
Anyplace but Anaheim 25-25
Seattle 24-25
Oakland 23-26

Two games over .500 is not as impressive as six, but considering the circumstances it's not awful. My personal theory is that the '11 team has not had the offensive pop that came from Vlad Guerrero in the first half of last season. 

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com

The NBA Finals Haven't Started and the Mavs Are America's Team

The respective conference finals aren't done yet, but they are.

And with that comes the most unlikely coronation ever expected: Mark Cuban owns America's Team.
America's Team because everybody in America wants to see whoever beat the best team the NBA can buy, the Miami Heat. We don't care who beats them, we just want to see them lose.

The Heat have officially replaced the Yankees/Red Sox and Notre Dame as the single most disliked team in all of pro sports. Yes, that includes Notre Dame.
Alex Rodriguez is the biggest LeBron James fan outside of LeBron himself, mostly because he's taken the heat off ARod as King Fraud No. 1. 

This Miami Herald columnist, who cry afoul if this team wasn't in his back yard, says we all feared this from the start.

The media will hammer this story line the moment these respective conference finals are completed, but it's never too early to start beating something to death.

Mark Cuban, for the next two weeks, everybody outside of South Beach will be rooting for you.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com 

Mavs Stuff Soon to be Half Off

DALLAS - Next to the "Beat LA" gear that the Mavs can't give away from their team store at the AAC is this item - 

The Battle of I-35 should be renamed the I-35 Beat Down (that's a shirt I would buy).

Give it two days and this stuff will be half off, replaced by "Mavs Western Conference Champions" stuff, replaced by "Mavs/Heat NBA Finals" stuff.

If you can wait, which is hard, this stuff always is dramatically marked down because teams inevitably print more than they can sell.

That said, I kinda like this one ...

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com 

Dirk is The Closer

DALLAS - We've known about Dirk's greatness for years, but we always questioned his ability to close out a game. To go 1-on-3 and simply will an entire team to multiple wins. To hit the shots late when the game is close. He's done it before, just never with this type of consistency.

He's too nice. The enormity of the moment gets to him. Something.

To be fair, there have only been a few in the history of the league who can score when there is no way they should. To score when we all know that's exactly what he's going to do.
Dirk is five wins away from joining that category, if he isn't there already.
What he is doing in these playoffs is the ultimate act of NBA dominance - there is nothing that can be done to stop him in the fourth quarter.

Dirk Nowitzki is The Closer. 

In these playoffs Dirk is averaging 9.8 points and shooting 53% from the floor in the fourth quarter. Both figures are tops in the NBA (min 40 atts).

There has not been a more lethal scorer in the fourth quarter of these playoffs. Derrick Rose was doing that until he met the Heat.
Dirk has been doing it every round. 

For the first time in his career Dirk is acting like Batman rather than just being comfortable as Robin. The reason the Mavs are here is because they're best player is better than any other player on any other floor, and he's comfortable with that responsibility.

"Right now, he knows where things are at," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle told me on Tuesday.

This means Dirk knows the score for the game, the playoffs, and his career.

He is averaging 28.6 points per game in these playoffs, the highest of his postseason career. He is shooting 52% from the floor; amazing because this isn't a classic low post scorer who scores the majority of his points on layups and dunks. Most of Dirks shots are at least 13 feet away from the rim.

But the Dirk we're watching now is as confident as any player in the NBA, who realizes to get what he wants he's going to have to do the majority of the heavy lifting, which in The Association translates to the fourth quarter.

Unlike his previous post season attempts he's been doing that every fourth quarter of just about every game but one. And by now we really don't care about what happened in Game 4 in Portland.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com 

Wednesday Hangover: A Former Mav Wins The Kardashian Lottery, Oprah Is Done, Mavs Win West

A great day, even if I got a late start ...

1. Kris Humphries officially became the NBA's version of Kate Middleton when he officially engaged Mensa spokesperson Kim Kardashian.

This clearly will be better for his bank account than the 25 games he played for the Mavs 2009-'10 season.
Have to be happy for Kardashian. After running through an assortment of NFL players, who clearly were no good for her, she followed her sister's lead and settled on the pro sports league renowned for universal fidelity - the NBA.

She is living proof that if you are the daughter of a wealthy lawyer, make a sex tape with a B-list rapper, pimp you and your family out to a TV network and contribute just about nothing to society you can indeed have it all.  

2. Speaking of nothing, another great day for men: Oprah is done. With networks chopping daytime soaps and Oprah set to join the cast of The Apprentice, or Dancing With the Stars or whatever else, what are the daytime viewers going to watch?
The great show that is "I Shouldn't Be Alive" which airs on the Animal Planet.

3. The Thunder are done and we know it. But let's pretend this is still a series.

4. A good reason to consider not being a Houston Rockets fan - the Rockets are talking to Kevin McHale about being their next coach. I'd rather have the kid from Glee who goes by the same name than the former Celtic.

5. A new Rangers reliever proved he fit right in: Yoshinori Tateyama allowed one hit, one run in his debut against the White Sox on Tuesday. The dude obviously belongs.

6. The Canucks are going to win the Stanley Cup Finals. Which means I lose my lunch bet.

More to come ..

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com