MIAMI — If the unofficial start of the NBA season came when LeBron James uttered the most infamous nine-word phrase of the past 11 months — “I’m going to take my talents to South Beach” — then it came full circle on Sunday night, when the Dallas Mavericks won their first championship at American Airlines Arena and promptly took the Larry O’Brien trophy to South Beach for a lavish party, an excess in opulence.
Shortly after the Mavericks vanquished the free agent champion Miami Heat, owner Mark Cuban rented out the night club Liv, where his players marched on their opponents’ party turf like conquering heroes. They proudly sang “We Are the Champions,” Jason Terry spread his arms and pretended to fly around the trophy whose image he already has tattooed on his right biceps, and NBA Finals most valuable player Dirk Nowitzki sipped from an insane, 31-liter, gold bottle of champagne.
(LM Otero/AP) - Dirk Nowitzki, center, of Germany raises his MVP trophy followed by teammates Jason Terry, second from left, and Tyson Chandler, left, as they exit the charter with owner Mark Cuban.
(LM Otero/Associated Press) - Dallas Mavericks Brendan Haywood, left, holds up the NBA Championship basketball trophy followed by teammate Dirk Nowitzki.
The celebration may have been a little flashy and over the top, but unlike the free agent party that announced the union of James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, it was somewhat justified for a veteran-laden team and a big-mouthed, big-spending owner who had to endure years of disappointment to reach the pinnacle.
“We’re the world champs. Nobody can ever take that away from me. So that’s really the best thing about this,” Nowitzki said after he finally captured the championship that he spent nearly half of his life chasing.
Nowitzki and the Mavericks underwent a remarkable transformation over the course of this postseason, going from a team many doubted would advance beyond the first round — something Dallas had been unable to do in three of the previous four seasons — to one that walloped the two-time champion Los Angeles Lakers, schooled Oklahoma City and throttled the heavily favored Heat to avenge a loss in the 2006 Finals.
Nowitzki has been the centerpiece of the Mavericks for more than a decade, with Cuban and Donnie Nelson, Dallas’s president of basketball operations, making several bold moves to find the correct pieces to put around him. They let Steve Nash leave in 2004 and become a two-time MVP and replaced him with Terry, brought back Jason Kidd at the 2008 trade deadline, acquired Shawn Marion in a sign-and-trade the next summer, raided the rebuilding Washington Wizards for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson, and finally make a deal with Charlotte to get the vocal defensive leader they needed in center Tyson Chandler.
“It doesn’t happen overnight. There’s no quick solutions. There’s not a single template for winning the championship. If there was, everybody would do it,” Cuban said after maintaining a self-imposed muzzle throughout the playoffs. “So you just have to hope you get a little bit lucky, hope things break your way and you go out there and do it.”
At times, Cuban found himself overpaying for mediocrity but it never stopped his ambition to make the Mavericks relevant at the box office and on the court. No trade or signing was more instrumental to the Mavericks than re-signing Nowitzki to a four-year extension last summer. And Nelson admitted that there was some angst as Nowitzki became an unrestricted free agent last summer.
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