Mavs Legends: 1980’s Greats presented by PATH
As part of the Dallas Mavericks celebrating 45 years, join some of the original greats from the 80s for a conversation & dinner at Nick & Sam’s Steakhouse.
Mark Aguirre, Rolando Blackman, Derek Harper and Sam Perkins join host Jeff “Skin” Wade to reminisce on their time building an exciting NBA expansion team.
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4 Comments
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Based on his DePaul years he was great (note NO freshman did what he did until well after he came along!). 24/7.6/2.7 as a FRESHMAN in 1978-79, Final Four!! Nobody did that well. 25/8/3 for his career, 6 Player of the Year awards, 2-time unanimous All-American, Olympic team.
Joins the NBA on an expansion team with Jim Spanarkel, Wayne Cooper, Allen Bristow all playing a lot with so many rookies, then comes back with Kelvin Ransey, Corny Thompson, and of course Pat Cummings having to play center, while he slashes 24/6/4 and the team fighting for playoffs! Then 25/6/4 in Dallas, lead them to 5 playoffs after expansion (which no expansion team but his ever did), look at what he did in 1984, took a team of rejects into the playoffs and a playoff win no less. Should have been All-NBA (he slashed 29.5/5.9/4.5 while players who got all-NBA ahead of him played on stacked teams and slashed: 24.2/10.1/6.6 (Bird), 26.3/5.1/2.1 (King), 22.4/6.9/4 (Erving), 30.6/5.7/3.9 (Dantley)). Which of those players had to play with Bill Garnett, Kurt Nimphius, Pat Cumming at center, and Elston Turner? Aguirre had to play alongside Nimphius and Garnett as starters, not All-Stars like the rest of them had! Bird earned his nod, King had Bill Cartwright and Truck Robinson, Erving had Moses Malone, and Bobby Jones, Dantley had Mark Eaton, Thurl Bailey, and John Drew!
Over 9 playoff series in Dallas he slashed 23/7/4, with that amazing 1984 season and 1988 Conference Final bookending it! If you look at how creative he was, his scoring looks even more impressive in the playoffs given the system he played in. He leaves Dallas, they fall from 4th to 9th in the West. After 5 playoff runs, 10 years with one playoffs, out in a sweep. Detroit? He leaves, they win 20 fewer games. Motta and McLeod should have let him play the game, not treat him like he was a problem.
And 1988, Conference Finals, 2 Titles thereafter. Hall of Fame no matter how you slice it! Look at Roy Tarpley, Aguirre was the reason he had 2 good years in the NBA, Aguirre kept him away from drugs/alcohol. How are Ralph Sampson, Ming Yao, Tracy McGrady, and Mitch Richmond all in the Hall? Walter Davis is in based on Phoenix but his stats are less than Aguirre in Dallas. He's earned the Call.
What an awesome video…….not even annoying Skin could have messed this up for me. For a 50 year old guy that loved these Mavs teams this brought back some great memories.
Glad the Mavs will retire Mark Aguirre's jersey. It's long overdue. I always wondered why Mark Cuban never retired his jersey when he was the owner. Then I read somewhere that Cuban had a jersey retirement policy that favored players who stayed. That sounds more personal than based on accomplishments. I know things got ugly toward the end of Aguirre's tenure with the Mavs. Regardless, you can't deny the history. Somebody was the face of the franchise all those years in the beginning. Somebody was an all-star and scored all those points.