Parading Around The Arrogance

Look, we all know our Dallas Mavericks are gonna win the NBA Finals. But that doesn’t mean the series is over just yet. The Mavs are up 2-0 heading into tonight’s Game 3, where the Miami Heat will almost certainly ride desperation to a big early lead. They call it…

Hurricane Harbor

Who needs coffee when there’s this to greet you first thing in the morning: “Mavs-Heat isn’t must-see TV,” blares the headline from the San Francisco Chronicle, where columnist Gwen Knapp says Sunday offered much better sports viewing than Game 2 of the NBA Finals. You know what was better than…

Havin’ a Ball. Kind Of.

Don’t read this if you’re going to watch the rebroadcast of the U.S.-Czech Republic World Cup match tonight. On second thought, do read it, because I’ve got a piece of advice: Don’t bother. We were terrible. In 2002, the U.S. made up for inferior individual skills with relentless pressure and…

Allowance Don’t Cover This, Boys

From left: Chris Mavor, Andrew Hamilton and Sam Murchison made it to the AAC last night the old-fashioned way. They earned a thousand bucks in a week. This afternoon The Dallas Morning News posted a short piece to its Web site about three 11-year-old boys who raised more than $1,000…

Feeling Charitable Toward Shaq

Memo to Shaq: Tossing kids is not how you’re supposed to practice free throws. Then again, whatever doesn’t work… It’s almost to the point of sympathy–pity, really. With the way your Dallas Mavericks have dismantled the Miami Heat in taking a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals, it’s like watching…

Here’s Mindy

Is that a pistol in your pocket, Helio, or are you just going to a 6-year-old’s birthday party? “Yaweee Bebe! Yawee Bebe!” Such is the victory cry of the Indy Racing League, or at least it is out of the mouth of Brazilian Helio Castroneves (hobbies: tennis, being one of…

Of Shaq and Stack

Wishful thinking of wish fulfillment? The Sporting News is reporting this morning that Jason Terry’s going to stay in Dallas next season. Looks like the NBA Finals ain’t going past Thursday night’s Game 4 in Miami; least, that’s what it says in damned near every paper Unfair Park’s been perusing…

Star Search

Word is this guy’s supposed to show at the Mavs-Heat game Sunday. So in Game 1 of Dallas-Miami we got some Jerry Bruckheimer, some Jack Ingram, some Terrell Owens–some so-so celebrities. But for Game 2, I hear we’re going to–you knew it was coming–turn up the Heat. In addition to…

Game Won

See, I toldja the Heat sucked. That and other revelations from the Mavs’ Game 1 victory over Miami last night at American Airlines Center: Nothing says cool like glowing blue pom-poms. Made the American Airlines Center look more like a U2 concert instead of The NBA Finals. After forcing our…

One Down…

I told the Miami-born missus last night (or about an hour ago, give or take) the story of the first game in the NBA Finals would be: Dirk scores nada, Mavs still win, Miami’s screwed. Turns out at this early hour (it’s now 1:19 a.m., just maybe not where you…

Think Globally, Watch Locally

There is no disputing that the NBA Finals are huge, colossal, epic—in the United States. It’s equally true that for the rest of the world, the end of this year’s NBA playoffs is just a footnote to the finals that really matter: the World Cup. But there’s no need to…

Uh…Mark?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has picked up a nice piece about Mark Cuban and Shaq–the “oddball couple,” ugh–written for the Associated Press by my old pal Jaime Aron. But I warn you: It contains the worst picture ever taken of the Cubes. And I think scout Reggie Johnson agrees, from…

Mavs in Seven?

Dwyane Wade looks really neat in NBA Live 06. Too bad even the videogame version’s gonna get spanked. Screw Vegas. Put your money on the $7-plus billion per annum videogame industry. EA Sports, publishers of NBA LIVE 06, ran a videogame simulation of the NBA Finals and concluded that Dallas…

Finally, The Finals

Us sports nuts have been waiting since Saturday for the Dallas Mavericks-Miami Heat NBA Finals to start. Devoted Mavs fans have been waiting 26 years, actually. But for the rest of you Dallasites just now trendily hopping aboard the bandwagon (Hi, honey!), here’s a neophyte primer to this really important…

Game 1’s Tonight. Uh, Don’t Forget.

But seriously, don’t these guys scare you just a little bit? Abu Musab al-Zarqawi no longer needs his morning Mavs-Heat round-up, and it sure looks like he’s gonna miss tonight’s first game of the NBA Finals, but what say the rest of us get down to it? Let’s go international…

Chumps to Champs

Screw David Hasselhoff. Where’s Zelda Rubinstein? Rather than the former Baywatch crooner turned Mavericks coattailer, Dallas should trumpet its long-awaited arrival at the NBA Finals with Zelda, who played creepy clairvoyant Tangina Barrons in Poltergeist. As she did dramatically in declaring the departure of ghosts from a haunted house in…

And You Thought Gas Prices Were Out of Control

As you can probably tell by now, I loves me some Mavs. I’m a teenager who attended their first game at Reunion Arena back in 1980, an adult who made a decent living chronicling their every move in the newspaper and a parent whose son named the family dog “Maverick.”…

Sports News You Can Use or Peruse or, Even, Abuse

In our ramp-up to the Mavs-Heat NBA Finals, which tips off tomorrow night, we continue our wrap-up of the national media coverage of the series. Let’s begin all the way up in Washington state, where Seattle Times writer Percy Allen brands this a most watchable series–and not only that, but…

Gossage a Ranger! Well, Different One.

My old baseball-card-tradin’ pal Jamey Newberg, author of the beloved and essential Newberg Report, passes along the following missive regarding the Texas Rangers’ draft-day doings. Yeah, I know–who knew the MLB was having its draft today? Well, Jamey did, which is why Unfair Park allows him free access to the…

The Texas Strangers

Don’t look now–no, really, don’t look, you might miss the Mavs in the NBA Finals–but your baseball team is somehow in first place into June. I say somehow because, considering the moves that have backfired, what the Texas Rangers are accomplishing would make David Blaine do a double-take. Consider: General…

Havin’ a Ball with the Mavs & Heat

Every morning, till the end of the NBA Finals, Unfair Park will serve up with yer breakfast a round-up of what the outta-town papers have to say about the Dallas-Miami match-up in the NBA Finals. We begin today with what’s turning out to be a golden-oldie: the name game. USA…

Diesel Does Dallas

One of these guys will not be playing in the NBA Finals beginning Thursday. That is so awesome. The good news: After 26 long years your Dallas Mavericks are in the NBA Finals. The bad news: Shaquille O’Neal is coming to town. Whether it’s been dunking on Shawn Bradley, mocking…