BASKETBALL!!

I was at the card shop the other day with nothing in particular on my mind to buy when I had a revelation of sorts. Well actually, I just had to ask myself a question. Why aren't I collecting basketball cards? Since I returned to collecting I've focused on baseball & football only. I haven't bought basketball cards since around 1992 when I built almost complete sets of Fleer and Skybox. That was when I gave up collecting altogether. Basketball is (to quote Kurtis Blow) my favorite sport. It's the one sport I'm decent at and played in high school and in rec leagues since the 5th grade. I'm 6'6'', hence the nickname Big D. I LOVE the Dallas Mavericks and have followed them closely since the early '8os, even though I didn't live anywhere near Dallas at the time. All of these are reasons I decided I should collect basketball again, so I bought some cards, right then and there. Here are some of the cards I picked up.

A couple of Topps Finest from the '90s. Lo Williams was one of my favorite players from the really bad Mavs years. I mean they stunk back then, but I loved them just the same. Lorenzo was waaay undersized to play center in the NBA, but he worked his tail off. Derek Harper was around seemingly forever, in fact he is still featured on the Mavs tv broadcasts today. He and Ro Blackman were the guards in the Mavs late '80s heydays when the went to the Western Conference Finals for the first time against the Lakers. That was when the Mavs were great, right before I moved to Texas. I was so excited to finally be able to see the Mavericks from up close after following them from Illinois and Indiana for so many years. Of course, right after I moved here is when they began to fall apart and then spend a decade of so as a really bad team. Figures.

Here are a couple of my favorite ex-Mavericks. Yes, that is Steve Nash, long before his now famous shaggy hair. I still can't believe Mark Cuban thought Nash was basically a year or 2 from being done and decided not to resign him. That was like what, 6 years ago. Nice one! Michael Finley had many good years in Dallas and it kills me to have to watch him play for the hated Spurs now, but I still like him.

Jason Terry, Jason Kidd & Josh Howard are three of the current Mavs. "Jet" has been here for several years now and had to play a lot of point guard before Kidd returned to the club. Josh Howard has been kind of up and down over the years, hampered by injuries often. He's also had a few boneheaded off the court mishaps, but when he's healthy he is a great player, at least for the first 3 quarters of the game.

Lastly, we have my 2 all time favorite Mavericks. Mark Aguirre is the whole reason I became a Mavs fan in the first place. I lived in Illinois during his time in college at DePaul and became a big fan of his as a Blue Demon. I didn't follow the NBA a whole bunch at that time, so when the Mavericks drafted my favorite player, guess who became my favorite team? Since then I've stuck with them through thick and thin, even after I moved to Texas and they began to wallow around in their own futility. Then came Dirk and things began look up. Since Dirk arrived they have steadily stayed near the upper echelon of teams and even made an appearance in the NBA Finals, which unfortunately didn't go so well. Dirk is definitely the greatest Mavericks ever and even though he gets ripped a lot for being soft, not playing D or whatever, the truth is, we most likely will never see another guy do what he's done in a Mavs uni. I'm just glad I've been around to see it all. So there you go, my first basketball post. I have updated my header picture at the top to better represent what I plan to collect from here on. I've also updated my "What I Collect" list to include some non-Mavs as well. If you've got tons 'o Mavs taking up space, send them my way! Later.