NBA Playoffs 2011: Is Mark Cuban the Reason for Dirk Nowitzki's Bad Reputation?

NBA Playoffs 2011 restores Dirk’s rep, but who destroyed it in the first place?

It appears that Dirk Nowitzki is reviving his reputation. According to Jason Whitlock though, it’s at the expense of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Whitlock writes:

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Cuban’s uncontrolled paranoia and feud with David Stern are the primary reason the Mavericks have been postseason underachievers.

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While I think Whitlock is always a thought-provoking read, I’m not certain he’s nearly close to rational on his point about Cuban and Nowitzki.

It’s not Cuban’s image, which admittedly is obnoxious at best, that has caused Dirk his less than stellar reputation as a playoff superstar. It’s his track record.

The conspiracy theorists can conjure up ideas that ref’s screwed Dallas out of the 2006 Finals, but those who were watching saw a Miami team that charged the rim and a Dallas team unwilling to make the defensive adjustments necessary to stop them.

Whitlock makes a mistake in giving Cuban that much credit. At the end of the day we live in a sports world where you are judged by wins and losses. Points, efficiency rating and any other number that stat heads and columnists use to determine the value of a player fall out the window when final outcomes are determined.

Dirk losing the 2006 finals and being run out in the first round of the 2007 playoffs were enough to be seal his fate. Mark Cuban had nothing to do with it.

Perhaps Cuban has been the reason why Nowitzki hasn’t been the visible face of the franchise he should be, but having your face plastered on TV won’t restore your reputation or absolve you from cardinal basketball sins: like blowing a 2-0 lead in the playoffs.

Perhaps beyond Mark Cuban and Finals losses exists our insistence to put Dirk Nowitzki into a box the way we do with other athletes. They are winners or losers, clutch performers or chokers, and once you are put into a box it’s tough to be pulled out.

Kobe has missed countless big shots, but Kobe exists in the clutch category and so no matter how many shots he misses, no matter how much he tries to force his greatness when he just doesn’t have it, he’s still clutch because that is what we have decided.

Our logic on winners and losers only goes so far. Dirk’s 2006 Mavericks were good enough to get to the NBA Finals so they must have been good enough to win. They had a 2-0 series lead so they must have been good enough to win.

But they didn’t. So case closed. Dirk choked.

But the Mavericks were unable to make adjustments as a team to stop the onslaught of a Wade and Shaq assault. So they weren’t good enough to win. They got beat by a better team.

Or in the 2007 playoffs, they were the one seed so they should have been good enough to beat Golden State. But Golden State was the one matchup that gave them fits. They were the one team equipped to beat the Mavericks and they did. It was a team wide collapse.

It’s that last part of the logic that escapes us because we, just like the news we read, makes us reactionary. We form opinions in an instant, and once we do we lock them in and move on to the next thing.

Dirk always has, and always will be one of the better NBA players to have played. His teams, at least up until this point have never been good enough to win. That’s the bottom line on Dirk Nowitzki.

Mark Cuban has nothing to do with that.