In the first half of the season, because Nowitzki was too back, old Nelson seemed to have given up Nowitzki, but Nowitzki did not give up on himself, he will practice every season, even if Nowitzki only played 5 minutes in this game, he had to do a lot of warm-up before the game to fully ensure his condition, everyone gave up on you, but you can't give up on yourself! This is the truth!

Everything turned around on April 13, 1999, in this shrinking season of only 50 games, the Mavericks only got 11 wins, and this season, there are only 14 games left, the Mavericks are basically saying goodbye to the playoffs, the night before this day, the old Nelson suddenly said to Nowitzki, tomorrow, you play the starter, and play power forward, replace the position of AC Green, which surprised Nowitzki, AC Green has been the starting point since he came to the Mavericks last season, Because Bradley is too thin to withstand the strong interior line in the opposing camp, he must use the physically strong AC Green as cannon fodder.

There is a reason why the old Nelson let Nowitzki start, on the one hand, AC Green is 37 years old this year, although he is the starting point of the Mavericks this season, but the average playing time per game has dropped by almost half compared with last season, and the contribution on the court has also decreased a lot, on the other hand, the season is coming to an end, the Mavericks have no desire, it is better to train the recruits, as for why the time node is placed tomorrow, all because tomorrow's opponent is the powerful Spurs, and the Spurs have David Robinson and Tim Duncan. Green is only 206 centimeters tall, and Nowitzki can increase his height on the court and compete with the Spurs twin towers on rebounding, and the old Nelson is more meaningful to let Nowitzki learn something from the legendary center David Robinson.

The game started quickly, Nowitzki was the starting four, not surprisingly, Nowitzki was suppressed by Duncan and David Robinson on the offensive end, 14 shots in the game, only hit 4 shots, 0 of 4 three-pointers, scored 12 points, but grabbed 13 rebounds, including 4 frontcourt rebounds and 4 assists, surprisingly, the Mavericks won the Spurs, the Mavericks grabbed 50 rebounds in the game, Nowitzki and Bradley contributed 25 of them, The Spurs grabbed just 44 rebounds.

In the second game, Nowitzki was still the starter, and the performance was still bad, as a starter, he was pressed off the court by Nelson Sr. after playing 17 minutes, no, it was not a foul, he only had 2 fouls in the whole game, and scored 4 points and 3 backcourt rebounds on 2-of-5 shooting, but the Mavericks won again, relying on Finley to play a full 47 minutes, and scored 34 points in 11 of 16, allowing the Mavericks to beat the Timberwolves by 6 points.

At the very least, Nowitzki is no longer the "musty star" of the Mavericks at the beginning of the season.

In fact, the old Nelson has never given up Nowitzki, but the Novitzki at the beginning of the season is too "moldy", so bad that the Mavericks can't turn over, the Mavericks still want to compete for the playoffs at the beginning of the season, and now there is no pressure to get into the playoffs, the next game against the Suns, the old Nelson waved his hand, Nowitzki played for 44 minutes, and Nowitzki, who regained confidence, repaid the trust of the old coach with the best performance of the season, He scored a season-high 29 points on 10-of-16 shooting, along with eight rebounds, three steals and two blocks. Although the calf knelt again, it didn't matter whether he won or lost.

Including the first two games of the Spurs and the Suns, and the last 14 games of the season, Nowitzki has been the team's starter, averaging 32.7 minutes per game, scoring 13.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.2 steals and 0.6 blocks, shooting 45.1% from the field and 24.0% from three-point range. contributed three performances of scoring 20 points, although the data is not very impressive, but the important thing is that the Mavericks unexpectedly won 8 games in these 14 games, including a four-game winning streak, of course, it is not ruled out that the playoff list has been determined, and there is a situation where the team has released water, but these eight victories have strengthened Nowitzki's confidence and strengthened the confidence of the Mavericks.

In the end, Nowitzki averaged 8.2 points, 3.4 rebounds per game in his rookie season, shooting 40.5% from the field, 20.0% from three-point range, and 0.8 in victory.

Steve Nash in his first season with the Mavericks, sat firmly in the team's starting No. 1 position, but did not show the demeanor of the top passing master in the future, averaging 7.9 points, 5.5 assists and 2.1 turnovers in 32 minutes per game, shooting 36.3% from the field and 37.4% from three-point range.

Bradley, the team's starting center, did the same as last season, averaging 8.6 points, 8.0 rebounds and 3.3 blocks per game, and of course, the team was able to win 19 of its 50 games, mostly thanks to Michael Finley.

After Finley came to the Mavericks, for the second consecutive season, he averaged more than 41 minutes per game, but the team played the No. 3 position, played the No. 3 position, and played the No. 2 position if he lacked the No. 2 position, and was both a father and a mother, ranking 12th in the league with an average of 20.2 points per game, and 5.3 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.3 steals.

Because the Mavericks sent the 1999 first-round pick to the Suns in exchange for Nash (which later became the No. 9 pick in the first round in 1999, and the Suns used this pick to select Sean Marion), the Mavericks didn't get much at the 1999 rookie conference, but in the free market, Dennis Rodman was signed for 1 million a year, and Rodman joined to supplement Nowitzki and Bradley's lack of rebounding, yes, you read that right, mention Rodman, Many fans feel that he is a star in the 80s of the last century, and Nowitzki is a player in the 21st century, but in the second year of Nowitzki's career, he did have teammates with Rodman, but Rodman did not change his true colors, and was finally ordered to leave the team after many unexcused strikes, and then Rodman never appeared in the NBA again, and this season, Rodman only played 11 games, grabbing an average of 14.3 rebounds per game.

In addition to Rodman, the Mavericks have not made any substantial additions to the lineup this year, but in terms of role arrangement, due to the injury of Gary Trent, who performed well last season, in training and missed the team's first 22 games, Nowitzki has become the starting power forward of the iron fight, and in other aspects, Robert Parker has beaten Nash to become the team's starting No. 1 position, compared to Nash, Parker's defense is obviously better, and the No. 2 position is Eric Strickland, who has played in the team for four years, The latter spent most of his first three divisions on the bench, but this season he basically locked up the team's starting No. 2 position with excellent performance, averaging a career-high 12.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game, shooting 43.3% from the field and 39.2% from three-point range.

The third position is naturally Finley, the fourth position is Nowitzki, in the fifth position, the Mavericks have also changed, the original team's iron-clad starting Bradley was placed on the bench, and the center Sean Lukes, who returned to the Mavericks this season, occupied the starting No. 5 position at the beginning of the season, although Lukes is only 208 cm tall, but he is physically strong and can block Nowitzki's gun.

In the first game, the Mavericks beat the Warriors, but Nowitzki's performance was still not so satisfactory, as a starter, played 22 minutes, scored 9 points, 7 rebounds and 3 assists in 2 of 5, and the team was able to win, still relying on the omnipotent Finley.

In the second game, Nowitzki warmed up, and soon showed the fans and management the results of his training this summer, this summer, Nowitzki and Nash practiced together, and when Nowitzki asked Nelson Sr. about the focus of training, Nelson Sr. replied like this -

"What's the easiest thing to do on the basketball court?"

Young Nowitzki shook his head.

"It's shooting, shooting is the easiest thing to do, don't think about anything else when you get the ball, it's just shooting, as long as you have the opportunity, you shoot!"

So Nowitzki and Nash practiced shooting for a summer.

In the second game of the SuperSonics, Nowitzki scored 15 points on 7-of-14, but Finley did not play well, and the Mavericks lost, in the third game, Nowitzki scored 20 points with an 8-of-13 shooting rate, and the Mavericks beat the Warriors, and in the fourth game, Nowitzki scored 20 points again on 6-of-10, but the Mavericks lost to the Lakers.

Nowitzki finally got rid of the "bad luck" on his head, at least, he is no longer the "bad star" who loses as soon as the team plays, and from now on, no matter how Nowitzki plays, he is the team's iron-clad starter, and Nowitzki also uses extremely stable scoring to repay the preference of the old Nelson!

Throughout the season, Nowitzki was full attended, in 82 games, Nowitzki scored between 10-20 games, reaching 50 games, scoring less than double games, only 3 games, scoring more than 30 points, and only 5 games, this is an extremely stable scoring output, no matter who the opponent is, no matter who defends, every game is those points, although Nowitzki has not received any honors this season, but his progress in this season is obvious to all, compared to last season, Nowitzki has reduced unnecessary dribbling, The addition of shots has greatly increased Nowitzki's aggressiveness!

You may not understand this, but from the high-level data, you can find out how much Nowitzki has improved this season, last season's average playing time was 20.4 minutes per game, and the usage rate was 22.3%, and this season's average playing time was 35.8 minutes, but the usage rate dropped to 21.2%, which means that Nowitzki has reduced a lot of unnecessary touches, and these reduced touches are not breakthrough dribbles that can cause damage. If you convert Nowitzki's data for both seasons to every 36 minutes, Nowitzki made 4.8 free throws per 36 minutes last season, while this season this time this value is 4.3, which is not much different, it still means that Nowitzki has greatly improved his shooting ability while maintaining offensive aggression! And what's even worse is that this season Nowitzki not only shoots more, but also has a significant increase in shooting accuracy, the true shooting rate last season was 49.1%, this season reached 56.4%, and the shooting efficiency soared from 42.6% last season to 51.3% this season, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points! This has also led to Nowitzki's winning contribution this season, which has soared from 0.8 last season to 8.1 this season! The final stats were 17.5 points, 6.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, shooting 46.4% from the field and 37.9% from three-point range.

Of course, Nowitzki's metamorphosis is still not the decisive factor in the victory, Finley is!

Finley continued to work full-time this season, averaging 42.2 minutes per game, averaging more than 40 minutes per game for three consecutive seasons, and for three consecutive seasons, he became the player with the most playing time in the NBA, being both a father and a mother is no longer enough to describe Finley, it should be both a father and a mother, and a godfather and godmother plus a nanny, it's just tiring, averaging a career-high 22.6 points per game (11th in the league), grabbing 6.3 rebounds, diching out 5.3 assists, scoring 30+ points in 17 times, and scoring 20+With 53 games and three triple-doubles, Finley was named to the NBA All-Star team for the first time in his career with his outstanding performance this season.

And Steve Nash, at the beginning of the season, renewed a 5-year contract with the Mavericks with a total value of 28 million, Nash's performance last season was very mediocre, this contract made many fans dissatisfied, and even protested, this sentiment reached its peak this year, on the one hand, Nash is still averaging 8.6 points and 4.9 assists per game mediocre data, at the beginning of the season, he was even robbed of the starting position by the veteran Parker, played 56 games, and was reimbursed for the season due to injury, on the other hand, the first-round pick that replaced Nash last year became the ninth pick, the Suns selected Sean Marion, and Marion was able to contribute 10.2 points and 6.5 rebounds per game in his rookie season, and as a rookie, he shot 47.1%, This is only the data contributed by Marion who averaged only 24 minutes per game, and Marion also has his own defensive attributes, no matter how you look at it, last year's trade was a loss-making deal, and this year, this deal even made the Mavericks continue to pay.

On February 29, 2000, the 24-31 Mavericks were defeated by the 76ers 87-106, and on the same day, the 31-24 Kings defeated the Vancouver Grizzlies 112-87. Kicked out of the playoffs by the Kings. Although the Mavericks did not make the playoffs this year, the hot form at the end of the season gave the team management new hope!

In January 2000, investor Mark Kuban bought the Mavericks for 280 million, when the Mavericks' record was 9-23, after the change of new owners, the players also tried their best to show themselves in front of the new and old changes, and the season-ending record improved to a new high of 40-42 in the past ten seasons.

The 2000 NBA Draft was called the worst draft in NBA history, and there were only three All-Stars in the past, and none of them started the game.

The Mavericks selected short center Etan Thomas with the 12th pick in the first round, but Thomas didn't play a game with the Mavericks and was particularly unhappy with Thomas after being drafted, and Thomas was sent to the Development League all season.

In July 2001, the Mavericks moved to a new home stadium for the new season, and the name of the home stadium is also very high-end and atmospheric - American Airlines Center (American Airlines bought the naming rights of the team for 195 million yuan), although compared to the Reunion Arena that can accommodate 18,042 people, the 19,200 people of the American Airlines Center is not too much growth, but the team facilities, player welfare compared to the Reunion Arena is completely a sky, an underground, the number of luxury private rooms is the most in the NBA 142, and the American Airlines Center is ahead of its time in terms of design and architectural style, with all kinds of speakers, LCD TVs, physiotherapy equipment, and fitness equipment, which also drives the local fans, and the team atmosphere is very hot, compared to the basketball stadiumIt's more like a big basketball party, and whether the team wins or loses, the home court is almost full! The American Airlines Center also became one of the NBA's most attended home stadiums that year!

With the countless inputs of the library, the players are even more excited to play in the new season!

Kuban really invested a lot for the team, not only built a luxury stadium, but also renewed Michael Finley's contract with a total value of $102 million for 7 years! The elder Nelson is the beginning of the bombardment, Bradley is no longer a regular starter for the team, more active on the bench to lead the bench side by side, and the starting center is the team's new signing Christian Leitner, who has more running and jumping ability.

Finley was in full attendance in 82 games, averaging more than 40 minutes per game for the fourth time in his career, reaching 42 minutes, averaging 21.5 points, 5.2 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game, and Finley was also selected to the All-Star team for the second time at the end of the season , 38.7% three-pointers! Victory contribution points reached an unprecedented 14.6! What's even more commendable is that Nowitzki's performance is not very up and down, Novitzki has been in full attendance in 82 games throughout the season, and there is no game in which he has scored less than doubles, and there are 51 games with 20+ points!

But the team's biggest discovery was not Nowitzki, but the point guard who had been criticized by fans before, Steve Nash.

This season's Nash can be described as a metamorphosis, in the fast storm of old Nelson, Nash can be described as a fish in water, averaging 15.6 points per game and 7.3 assists, shooting 48.7% from the field, 40.6% from three-point range, 30+ points six times, and 21 assists on a double-double! Among them, he also scored 39 points at the beginning of the season, setting a new personal scoring career record!

Finley, Nowitzki, and Nash have had such excellent performances, and the team has had a smooth season, winning 34 of the first 55 games!

On February 23, 2001, the Mavericks made the biggest trade in franchise history with the Wizards, the Mavericks sent Hubert Davis, rookie Yoon Tan Thomas, center Christian Leitner who joined the Mavericks this season, two water coolers, Courtney Alexander and Roy Walker, plus 3 million cash to the Wizards, and got All-Star power forward Juwan Howard, Obina Ikechi and Calvin Butsch.

Ikechi is a short center of only 206 centimeters, who played only four games for the Mavericks this season before being cut, Butch is a 211 centimeter tall center, but has much more potential than Ikechi, and in the second year of his career, he played 19 games for the Mavericks in the regular season this season, including seven starts, averaging 7.5 points and 4.8 rebounds in 20 minutes per game.

It's clear that the Mavericks' goal is not these two players, but power forward Juwan Howard, who was selected as an All-Star in his second season as a rookie!