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Sweeps period
Sporting News, The, Jan 20, 1997 by Bill Minutaglio
It's bad enough Jamal Mashburn has dished out plenty of tickets for all the friends and relatives who took the subway downtown from Harlem and the Bronx ... but now some of them have to hear Butch Beard, Dallas' assistant coach, screaming in the second-quarter huddle: "You have 19,000 people laughing at you."
Some of them have to flinch when Dallas has 28 points at the half; 42 by the end of the third quarter. Some of them have to be edgy when the Mavericks flirt with the league single-game record low of 57 points and the franchise-low of 68 points. Some of the them have to be stunned when the Mavericks turn toward Greg Dreiling, a 10-year lunch bucketeer, to save them. The hockey stick with hair somehow helps the team avoid the records with a few late baskets, including only the third pointer of his career.
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But at least none of them had heard what rookie coach Jim Cleamons said in the Madison Square Garden visitor's locker room at halftime:
"Stevie Wonder, Roy Orbison and Ray Charles could have hit those shots ... or at least come close," Cleamons barked, invoking the name of one dead man and two others who are living but blind.
In the locker room, the more Cleamons thought about it, the more he felt like he was looking at aliens. That he was literally looking at 12 people who were dropped from outer space. Who, after they landed, put on basketball uniforms and high-priced sneakers. Who acted, maybe because some came from Ursa Major and others from deep inside Ursa Minor, as if they had never seen one another before.
Jim Cleamons felt like he was in a roomful of visitors.
The next day, Mashburn is spending the afternoon in a Four Seasons suite in The City of Brotherly Love. He had gone 0-for-5 from the field in New York. The team shot 29 percent.
Mashburn is trying hard not to think about the fact there have been endless stories about his being shipped somewhere--one more possible change in a season when it seemed like there was nothing left to alter
The franchise's founding fathers--owner, president, vice president and coaches-have been banished. A dozen management positions rearranged. Players dumped. Contracts eaten. A hawk-faced Jim Cleamons imported as coach from the Bulls. A hulking Eric Montross hired to play center. Gleaming new practice facilities are opened. So is a new film room. New director of player development. New trainer. Five new assistant coaches. Even new $8,000 IBM 760 ED laptops complete with CD-ROMs so players can study the moves of Michael Charles and Karl--or e-mail each other about rumors.
"I'm not really concerned if I'm going to be traded. I'm concentrating on my game," Mashburn says, inside the safety of his hotel room. After a while, he slowly adds: "I know they want us to make the playoffs this year. They want immediate results."
This afternoon, he also is musing about how nice it would be to play with Jason Kidd again. Not together, obviously, for the Mavericks. Kidd, the All-Star and alleged cornerstone, is gone--shipped by Cleamons to Phoenix the day after Christmas--and recovering from a broken collarbone that caused him to miss last Monday's Suns-Mavs game in Dallas. The trade was the latest, biggest, most controversial, change in team history. It broke up the endlessly hyped Three J's, the trio of Mashburn, Kidd and Jimmy Jackson, the group that was supposed to take Dallas to the championship.
"I wish I could have played with him more. Maybe I'll see Jason over the summer," says Mashburn, who has been injured and is averaging nine points a game.
"Up in Harlem, up in Rucker Park?" someone asks him, name-dropping the ultimate, hallowed New York playground.
"Nah, on MTV," Mashburn says, laughing. If he plays with Kidd again, he says, it will probably have to be in one of those MTV yucktests, those deals where the jocks lace up alongside skinny, scary white guys from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. A game like that, at least, Mashburn would be able to control. That much, at least, might be predictable. Unlike the Mavericks, where everything recently has been wildly unsure.
"Maybe change," Mashburn finally offers in a suddenly measUred, thoughtful voice, "is the nature of the beast."
Down the hall in the fancy Four Seasons, Chris Gatling knows all about the beast. He is jumping every time he hears the phone jangle. He never identifies himself until he knows who's on the other end. Gatling should be rock-steady. He has been the only bright spot for the Mavericks this season, one of the true free-agent finds. He and his 19.5 points a game should be secure.
"The phone rings and you never know," Gatling says. "Am I going to be next? You start living your life on an eggshell. I could be gone, you never know."
Outside his door, somebody is messing with him. Making noises. Giggling. This is not the kind of thing Gatling needs. He's not sure, but it might be Michael Finley, the silky forward brought over from Phoenix-along with Sam Cassell and A.C. Green and a second-round pick for Kidd, Tony Dumas and Loren Meyer.
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