Here's the Superman-Inspired Video the Mavs Produced to Woo Dwight Howard

Over the weekend, Mark Cuban posted a long and extremely detailed open letter explaining what's happened to the club over the past three seasons: how 2011's championship squad came together; the reasons it was subsequently picked apart (basically, the the players were too old); why the Mavs have whiffed on...

By Eric Nicholson

August 5, 2013

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Over the weekend, Mark Cuban posted a long and extremely detailed open letter explaining what's happened to the club over the past three seasons: how 2011's championship squad came together; the reasons it was subsequently picked apart (basically, the the players were too old); why the Mavs have whiffed on big-name free agents the past two summers; and why the team is, in fact, better off without Dwight Howard. And speaking of the NBA's most talented center, Cuban unveils the video the Mavs produced in their effort to woo him.

The two-minute animated clip plays on Howard's well-established Superman complex, portraying his rise from humble beginnings to basketball stardom as the stuff of comic book legend. But Howard, who arrives in Atlanta as an infant in 1985 after an interstellar trip of unspecified origin, cannot fulfill his true destiny until he teams up with Dirk and Mark Cuban. Cut to a shot of 2014 and 2015 championship banners with the Mavs logo.

It's a slickly produced video, but it has one glaring flaw. If Dwight Howard is Superman, then what's that Mavs logo doing projected above the night-darkened Dallas skyline? If a basketball franchise can't be trusted to keep their superhero tropes straight, can they really be trusted to put together a championship contender? On the other side of the equation, should a team rest its future on someone who bases their career choices on their intense love of comic books? Maybe both parties are better off with Howard in Houston.

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