The Dallas Mavericks are not a team with a rich history like the Boston Celtics or the Los Angeles Lakers. The Mavs are a much younger team and have fought for years to be as relevant in the league as their more notable rivals. This also brings up challenges of trying to grow your fanbase outside the home city of the team.
The Mavericks were trying some bold steps in 1995 while making their team promo video for the season. The 1995-96 Dallas Mavericks featured very few notable names but did have this trio of Jim Jackson, Jamal Mashburn, and Jason Kidd.
The team put the trio together for the 1995 promo video where they were dressed as cowboys. Kidd acts like his passing the basketball to Mashburn, and Jackson was like shooting a bullet, as smoke was coming out of his hands after the passes as the receiving players looked stunned. They don't make team promo videos like this anymore.
The Mavericks were a putrid team this season, winning just 26 out of their 82 games that season, nowhere close to making the Playoffs. The team had a very poor run of bad form in March 1996 when they went 1-15 over a 16-game stretch. Despite the bad performances, Mavs fans could at least be happy about having point guard Jason Kidd as the future of the franchise.
The Mavs fortunes would change after the 1997-98 season, as they were able to draft Dirk Nowitzki and trade for Steve Nash, giving the team a clear direction for the future. However, Jason Kidd left the team in 1996 after that disastrous 95-96 season.
Nowitzki and Nash would never find ultimate playoff success, but Nowitzki and Kidd did. In 2011, the Mavericks finally became NBA Champions and brought the story full circle. Kidd became a championship-winning point guard instead of a cowboy on a TV ad.
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