Shawn Marion relives the Championship glory; Uncertain about the shape of the roster next NBA season
Shawn Marion, the Dallas Mavericks small/ power forward has had a sensational career so far, but nothing in that 13 year run was as satisfying as the NBA world Championship, he won with the Mavs last season.
The 6 ft 7 veteran participated in the practise session at the American Airlines centre on Monday and in a press conference the very next day, Marion recollected the amazing Mavs run;
"It was a great team championship," Marion said. "I can’t say enough about how everybody contributed. Everybody did something special for this team. That’s why it was so special for us. We was hot. We were feeling each other. We
just had the ultimate swag. Regardless of what the naysayers were saying, anybody who knew basketball, we went out there and played the h**l out of some basketball, and it was fun being a part of it."
The Mavericks side last season, comprised mainly of old war horses, who had nearly everything in their resumes except the championship ring. When they qualified for the playoffs as the number third seeds in the Western Conference,
not many people gave them the chance to make it all the way.
The Mavs had reached the playoffs every time since 2004, yet every time, they failed to deliver the knockout punch and as such, they were branded as the perennial playoffs chokers.
All that changed last season though, as one by one, the Mavericks took out the Portland Trail Blazers; swept the Los Angeles Lakers and then outperformed the young Oklahoma City Thunder.
The finals test for the Mavs though, was one, in which nobody gave them a chance.
Pitched up against the powerful Miami Heat side, boasting LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, the Mavs had their work cut out.
The veteran Mavericks though were not to be intimidated.
On the quest to finally lay their hands on the holy grail of NBA, the Mavericks showcased a display of tenacious basketball, unseen so far in the history of NBA finals. In that series every piece of the puzzle was put together
by Dallas and the result was the first championship in 31 years of franchise history.
The winning combination now is on the cusp of breaking down as six of Mavs are free agents this fall. The future of Tyson Chandler, Caron Butler, J.J. Barea and DeShawn Stevenson at the Mavericks is quite uncertain after the management
forwarded them only a one year contract.
Considering that these guys are now championship stuff, there will be a lot of franchises courting them in the free agency and all the Mavs can do is to hope for their loyalty.
Marion for one is hopeful;
"This is definitely an interesting time right now because in this time frame how everybody is trying to cluster everything in and make things happen, it’s going to be very interesting to see how things unfold," Marion said. "But,
we’ve got to stay optimistic and stay positive and hopefully we’ll be able to keep most of our team intact. That’s the positive side of it, hopefully we’ll be able to, but you never know. At the same time we just have to see what happens."
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