We'd Keep Our Distance From Mavs Fans This Morning

It was not a good night to be a Dallas fan last night — it really hasn't been a good year to be a fan of any Dallas sports team — but it's really not a happy experience to be Dirk Nowitzki right now ... and it probably won't be for quite some time, writes True Hoop.

And now, instead of a champion, Nowitzki is only, until further notice, a pretender. I wonder how he'll feel, next week, when — most likely — he is summoned somewhere besides a Dallas home game to pick up the MVP trophy. It's a trophy he has earned. As much as he is in character fading from tough defensive schemes in these playoffs, he was also in character scoring 53 taking similar shots this time last year, and dominating all regular season long. The MVP is a regular season award, and this was his regular season. But the more Nowitzki is lauded as the MVP, the more he is responsible for his team. And the more he is responsible for the team, the more he has disappointed. I wonder if that trophy will make him feel anything but worse. That little trophy, assuming he gets it, will be, in a perverse way, the precise reason someone somewhere is probably writing a column right now saying that Nowitzki should be traded. If this becomes the first MVP trophy ever to be tossed off a bridge, I won't wonder why.

And Mark Cuban remains silent.

The Spotlight Is Burning Dirk Nowitzki [True Hoop] The City Of Dallas Is Experiencing One Of The Worst Sports Years Ever [WBRS Sports Blog]