I haven't checked as I'm writing this, but I'm sure Mark Cuban spent all last night up writing a scathing blog entry or something about how he'll be back, and that his team will do better. Yes, they've gone from 57 to 60, to now 67 wins, but there really isn't much better without threatening the 1996 72-10 Chicago Bulls.
But I'm sure everyone's already heard all the stories about how Dirk Nowitzki is the equivalent of a modern Nick Anderson or John Starks, and how he will have to raise his game before the Mavs have any chance of ever succeeding, and how their window of opportunity is diminishing like the Chicago Bears'. So I won't bother to mention any of that any further, and instead share my own personal opinion of what a great upset really is.
The 1994 Denver Nuggets - the original GREATEST UPSET IN NBA HISTORY, entered the eighth seed of the Western Conference playoffs with a pedestrian 42-40 record, taking on the 64-18 Seattle SuperSonics. This was also back when the first round was a reasonable best-of-five series, instead of this best-of-seven, 40 games in 40 nights bullshit they do nowadays.
Seattle romps the Nugs in the first two games, and all signs point to a sweep. Realizing the lack of expectations, and the sudden alleviation of pressure, the Nuggets, led by Dikembe Mutombo and other stalwarts such as Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Robert Pack, LaPhonso Ellis and Brian Williams obliterate the Sonics in game 3, and pull off an overtime win in game 4. Suddenly, all the pressure is on Seattle, with George Karl being seen on the bench sweating bullets off of his plasticky-looking head. Shawn Kemp (before being revealed to fathering 47 illegitimate children)), Gary Payton, Kendall Gill and Detlef Schrempf were ineffective, and Mutombo was proving to be a human shield to the basket, providing defense, reminscent of a 1984 Georgetown Patrick Ewing.
Game 5 was especially memorable when Robert Pack turned it up a notch in the fourth quarter, while Ellis and Williams provided solid contributions. Mutombo once again made it next to impossible to score in the paint, and he vaccuumed in every rebound in sight. And in what I thought was one of the single most memorable scenes in basketball history was when Mutombo snared down the final rebound, and clutched it tightly. For reasons unknown, Kemp tries to poke it out of his hands, despite the final buzzer sounding. Mutombo collapses onto his back, clutching the ball, with a sheer look of jubilance on his face. For the first time in the history of the NBA, the eighth seed had defeated the one seed.
They lost to the Jazz in the next round, but not before at least pushing them to seven games.
Because of the 1994 Denver Nuggets, whenever the NBA Playoffs come around and the commentators are expected to talk up the eighth seed, viewers will always hear about '94. In 1999, the New York Knicks defeated the Miami Heat from the eighth seed and even stretched their run into the NBA Finals, but it was also the lockout-shortened season, which soured most people's opinion of basketball that year anyway. Most of the time, #8 goes without much resistance, but because of '94, and eventually '99, every now and then, people can believe.
And now, because of three more wins by the 2007 Dallas Mavericks, their loss to the Golden State Warriors is considered the NEW greatest upset in NBA history. But let's not quite get ahead of ourselves here - the word "New," as any professional wrestling fan will know, when attached to an accomplished title, is the proverbial kiss of death.
I refuse to acknowledge the 2007 Warriors, a team partially anchored by Stephen Jackson, fan fighter, and unlicensed gun holder, shooting them at 3 a.m. in Indianapolis night club, as the greatest upset winners in history, when in 1994, a team defensively anchored by über-humanitarian Dikembe Mutombo, a man who is a living embodiment of the American Dream, who spent $27 million of his own money to build a hospital in the Congo and named it after his mother.
So let's cut the pretenses, let's cut the bullshit.
1994 Denver Nuggets > 2007 Golden State Warriors.
The REAL Greatest Upset in NBA History.
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