Poll: How long before fans' emotions return to normal?

[WildArkieBoy]

When the trade happened, I said I was done with the NBA. What a drama bitch I was to say that. I stayed through Zaccanelli, the Montross debacle, the original Kidd trade, Nellie stripping the team down to brass tacks so that we'd get good draft picks to rebuild, throwing away Nash, tearing down the championship team, the Rondo trade, throwing away Brunson... There has always been a Waldorf and Statler element to being a Mavs fan ("Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know. It's like a kind of torture to have to watch the show!"). Nico has taken things to a whole new level which adds up to all of the earlier crap combined, no doubt. But the fact of the matter is, I'm a MFFL. It's really funny how pro sports fandom has so little, in the end, to do with owners, GMs, et al. 

In reading the discourse here and reading the tea leaves, I am not sure that Nico and the ownership weren't right on a certain level to move on from Luka. The guy might actually be done, or heading toward done, a la Shawn Kemp post-Sonics. He always said that he wasn't going to play nearly as long as Lebron, which would have been necessary for him to get those 3-5 rings his talent level suggested he would eventually win. Would he have accepted less than the supermax without getting super-butthurt? That would have been necessary, I think, to move forward with him as the centerpiece.

That said, he was the player with arguably the highest trade value in the league. How do you dump him for a trade which doesn't even recoup half his value?

I also see what others see - the superior ball movement, the defense and astoundingly competent coaching, the talent we didn't know was there in Christie, Edwards, and Williams, how Exum has come back, how dominant they looked in the not-even-a-whole-game with the PJ-AD-Gafford lineup... I don't think that a healthy version of this team wins a championship, because Kyrie is the sole go-to guy. But they would be fun to watch in the playoffs. We'll see how the health holds up. Part of me is still hoping they fall apart and get the Cooper compensation. But goodness help me, I'm here for whatever happens.

I've tried not to be a fanatic or fan of anything, but that effort has been unsuccessful.  From "Baylor scores!" on my crystal set, grounded on the kitchen faucet, listening to Seattle U. games, to the Washington Huskies' '60 and '61 Rose Bowl wins, to listening to Razorback games on a transistor radio while fording Petit Jean River near Winthrop Rockefeller's Santa Gertrudis cattle ranch, I tried again and again to break the hold of fandom.

But, then the scratchy voice of Norm Hitzges, chronicling Nellie's trip to Wurzburg to drink beer with Dirk's dad, as I drove I-35W to work every day, intrigued me, sinking the hook deeply. 

 

Through every game with Dirk, Nash and Finley, the Cuban purchase, the brief Rodman experiment, the crushing 2006 finals loss. . . . to be honest, had Cuban traded Dirk at that point, pre-championship. . I'd have been gone.  

Yet, when I hit "D" on the YouTube search bar, it fills in 2011 NBA finals, knowing my habits.

Now my brain is scrambled: Donnie, the Lithuanian coach with his eye on Europe, this Real Madrid boy playing against grown men, anxiety waiting for the draft. . Atlanta bobbles, Luka switches caps, Hawks to Mavs, 5 all-NBA selections, then to the Finals against the historic Boston Celtics. . . . 

Then, a shoe saleman morphs into GM of the Year, then back to shoe salesman before my eyes after one coffee with Pelinka.  I swear off coffee and short hair combed forward. 

 

A round-faced gambler with a split in his teeth lectures me about culture, JKidd talks about "the player that was traded," Nico hides his face.

Now, my fandom is doing the splits with one foot on MavsForum, the other on LakersGround...77 shirts on every seat, Slovenian ballads in the air, Lebron orchestrates a grand entrance for the newbie. . Jack Nicholson is too old to come, but Dirk is not.  Full circle?????

wab