Hoop dreams

So whenever you start bad-mouthing the Dallas Mavericks, consider a guy like Kevin Sullivan, who devoted almost half of his life to the team and endured every awful minute of it without once complaining. If he can be a fan, what's your problem?

"For me, during the last 10 years, I did my best to keep my priorities straight and keep perspective and not take it as personally as I did during the first 10 years, when I was so immersed in it," Sullivan says. "That's what got me through it, having a wife and then three kids. It just kinda hits you that they don't care if there's a typo in the game notes, and they don't care if a player said something stupid on TV, or whatever. And I think that kept me sane--that, and I still loved it.