On May 20, 2005, the Mavericks lost to the Suns at home in the Western Conference semifinals, ending their season, and only in June, news broke that the Mavericks were going to get rid of Michael Finley.

Previously, Finley played eight and a half seasons in the Mavericks, playing a total of 626 games, second only to Brad Davis, Derrick Harbour, Rolando Blackman, the three players of the last century, and these three players without exception, were all retired by the Mavericks. With an average playing time of more than 40 minutes per game, he can be said to be a model worker, who has made great contributions to the rise of the Mavericks, and has never broken any negative news, and then Nowitzki grew up, and Finley also steadily handed over the leadership banner to Nowitzki, without complaints, he has always been conscientious and diligent in playing, so why did the Mavericks drive away Finley?

The reason is very simple, that is Finley's growing age and declining state, Finley's average points per game have declined for six consecutive seasons, and this year's average is only 15 points per game, and the more sad is the playoffs, in the playoffs against the Suns last season, Finley only averaged 13 points per game, and the shooting rate was less than forty percent, but Finley has turned 32 years old this year, but there are 3 years left in the contract signed that year to take 100 million yuan, and the total value reached 51 million US dollars, in fact, the Mavericks were just at the beginning of last season, wanted to trade out the in-form Finley, but because the contract was too big, no team was willing to take over, and as a result, he didn't change it for the whole season, and finally, Kuban held a management evaluation meeting for Finley, and finally, the Mavericks decided to pardon Finley.

Kuban and Mavericks' desperate actions broke Finley's heart, Finley is an introverted and soft player who is not good at words, whether it is at the beginning of the season, the news broke that he was put on the shelf, or the news broke at the end of the season that he was about to be pardoned, Finley did not speak in public once, and all the gossip was silently endured.

When Finley was pardoned, he scored a total of 12,389 points for the Mavericks, ranking fourth behind Blackman, Aguirre and Harbour, and also ranked fourth in team history in rebounds, fifth in team history with 2,393 assists and third in team history with 748 steals.

When Finley learned that he had been pardoned, he said lightly-

Leaving Mavericks doesn't keep me awake, I'm a man who goes with the flow. Unfortunately, last season I insisted on playing with an ankle injury and the team didn't do well enough. I made sacrifices for the team and it didn't work out......

In 2010, Finley retired, in the eight and a half seasons of the Mavericks, Finley wanted data (average points per game for five consecutive seasons 20 + 5 + 3) to honor (two All-Stars), the team in addition to the championship, to have a record, and has been diligent and hardworking, there has never been any negative news, such Finley, worthy of the Mavericks to hang his No. 4 jersey high above the sky of the American Airlines Center.

In addition to Finley, there is another meritorious player who has also left the Mavericks this season, he is Sean Bradley, the 33-year-old Bradley was once the hope of the Mavericks inside, but after the old Nelson single-handedly created the bombardment, the slow-moving big center was gradually excluded from the rotation lineup, and only played a total of 27 minutes in the playoffs last season, after the end of the season, Bradley completely lost his love for basketball, and this season Bradley and the Mavericks agreed to buy out with half of the money, bought out his three-year contract worth a total of $14.8 million, and then Bradley announced his retirement, it is worth mentioning that after Bradley retired, he became a school vice principal and ran on the road to politics. At the time of his retirement, Bradley grabbed 3,340 rebounds for the Mavericks to rank third in franchise history behind James Donaldson and Sam Perkins, and his 1,250 blocks were the most in franchise history (later broken by Nowitzki's 1,281).

There is also a paragraph of compel, after Cuban decided to pardon Finley, he privately contacted Finley to express his apologies, saying that he would pay the rest of Finley's salary in full, but I hope Finley will not go to the team in the West, especially the strong team in the West, because last year Cuban was injured by Nash The scene is still vivid, Finley is a player who pays attention to friendship and personality and has an inside line, but this time, although he didn't say anything more, he gave Cuban Hui a counterattack with his actions - he announced that he would join the championship favorite in the West, San Antonio Spurs.

Although Finley's state is difficult to return to, there is no doubt that the former boss of the Mavericks, who was the biggest coffee in the free market that year, caused dozens of teams to rush wildly, among which the Heat was able to provide a championship opportunity and a contract with the highest salary of any team at the time, close to the middle class (worth $5.76 million), but Finley chose last year's championship team, the San Antonio Spurs, a contract worth a total of 3 years and a total value of $8.4 million, and the first year was only $2.5 million. In fact, Finley's turning point this year is a good thing for Finley himself, for the next three seasons, Finley is receiving two salaries, one is $51 million from the Mavericks, and the other is $8.4 million from the Spurs, and after coming to the Spurs, Finley has become an indispensable backbone of the team's bench, and the next year, Finley got the coveted championship ring.

After the Mavericks gave up Finley, they immediately signed a defensive guard with a one-year contract worth a total of $3 million, Doug Christie, I don't need to introduce this brother, he met the Kings in the playoffs for two consecutive years, Christie's tough defense caused huge trouble to the Mavericks, which is why the Mavericks fancy Christie, but this signing is also risky, that is, Christie is 35 years old this year, on the verge of retirement, and last season also underwent major surgery on his left ankle, missed the game for the entire later season, and the status of the comeback is unknown.

On November 1, 2005, after an overhaul, the Mavericks restarted the journey of the season, the first game, away against the Phoenix Suns, the bitter master of last season, the two teams were on fire and two overtimes, and finally the Mavericks narrowly defeated the Suns by 3 points, making a good start to the season, in the starting lineup, in addition to Nowitzki, Terry, Dampier, coach Johnson chose Christie who is good at defense in the second position, but the effect is not good, the newcomer Christie is obviously not very suitable for the Mavericks' bombardment system, Injuries also affected Christie's performance, as he swallowed duck eggs on 0-of-4 shooting, while the No. 3 spot was the jack-of-all-trades Josh Howard, who was clearly better than Christie, with 16 points and 11 rebounds.

The game became a reflection of Christie's entire season, who was clearly plagued by injuries, and after seven games, Christie was averaging just 3.7 points per game while shooting just 34.6 percent from the field The victory contribution value is 0.1, the Mavericks announced that they cut Christie, after that, the Mavericks put Marquis Daniels in the starter, and the team's sixth man, Jerry Stackhouse, was unhappy, in terms of ability, in terms of seniority, Lao Tzu is no worse than Daniels, why did Lao Tzu play the starter, Johnson was helpless, put Stackhouse in the starter, played 11 games, unfortunately, Stackhouse was injured, only played 55 games in the whole season, and his condition was not good, averaging only 13 points per game, shooting 40.1%, Daniels returned to the starting line-up at the end of the season. And, playing very well, averaging 10.2 points per game, shooting as high as 48.2%, and fellow rookie Josh Howard, is faintly becoming a star, although he missed only 59 games due to injury this season, but he averaged 15.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, becoming the team's third firepower after Nowitzki and Terry.

Nowitzki is still the seven-foot ordinary man with incomprehensible shooting ability, no matter who he is wrong with, shooting the seventh highest points in the league per game - 26.6 points and grabbing 9.0 rebounds, shooting 48% from the field and 40.6% from three-point range, on March 23, 2006, the Mavericks lost to the Warriors by 1 point, Nowitzki scored 51 points on 16-of-24 shooting, which was also the second time in his career that he scored 50+, in addition to 25 games with 30+ points. Nowitzki is undoubtedly the strongest point of the Mavericks' offense, and Terry and Josh Howard are Nowitzki's strongest right-hand men, Terry has averaged 17.1 points per game this season, and has also scored 37 points per game.

The Mavericks coached by Jr. Avery Johnson can be seen from the big data The difference between them and the old Nelson era, in the old Nelson era, the Mavericks' offensive firepower is undoubtedly the top three or even the top two in the league, but the defense is basically the last, but this season, the Mavericks average "only" per game scored 99.1 points and slipped to sixth in the league, but conceded an average of 93.1 points per game, the seventh lowest points in the league, and an average of 12.9 turnovers per game, the fifth lowest in the league.

Speaking of defense, you can't talk about one person, he is Diop, after 36 games, he snatched the starting position from Daniel, in a sense, in fact, Dampier and Diop are similar, this season Dampier's offensive efficiency is 108, defensive efficiency is 103, The victory contribution value is 4.8, while Diop's offensive efficiency is 116, the defensive efficiency is 100, and the victory contribution value is a career-high 4.1, Diop's interior finishing ability is much stronger than Daniel's, but this is not the main reason why the Mavericks fancy Diop, Diop's use rate is only 6.9%, while Daniel's is as high as 15.7%, this data means that Diop is more eating cakes, and Daniel has a lot of back singles, and they are all inefficient back singles, Diop's role is set to be more pure, and the ball that can be conceded can be given to the more offensive efficiency of Nowitzki (123 offensive efficiency) and Terry (118 offensive efficiency), or even Josh Howard (115 offensive efficiency).

Is there another person missing, that person is the Mavericks' focused guard Devin Harris, Harris has been plagued by injuries this season, only played 56 games, started 4 games, and averaged 9.9 points in 22.6 minutes per game, compared to last season, there is no substantial growth.

With a new trident, Nowitzki, Terry and Howard, as well as a strong interior man with good defensive ability, the Mavericks have been on a high pitch this season, winning a team-record 60 games this season! In the league, it ranks second in the league behind the Pistons with 64 wins and the Spurs with 63 wins, but in the West, because the Spurs and Mavericks are in the same division, the Mavericks are fourth in the West, and the first round of the playoffs is against the Memphis Grizzlies.

This is the third consecutive year that the Grizzlies have reached the playoffs, last year, they were swept out by the Suns 4:0, the year before last, they were swept out by the Spurs 4:0, and this year, needless to say, they were swept out by the Mavericks 4:0 (if you are interested, you can go to see the Grizzlies roll), Nowitzki was unstoppable in the first round, averaging 31.3 points per game, shooting 50.6% from the field and 42.1% from three-point range. For the Mavericks, the real test began in the second round – the San Antonio Spurs.

In the Western Conference Finals three years ago, the Mavericks' fear of being dominated by Duncan is still vivid, and it is simply an inexplicable artifact, but three years later, the Mavericks' interior combination was replaced by Rafrentz to Dampier and Diop, which also gave the Mavericks a trace of confidence in their hearts, the Spurs After three years of tempering, the cooperation of Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili troika has become more and more proficient, and there are solid guards Brent Barry and Benno Judri in terms of role players, defensive master Bruce Bowen, and Mr. Key Robert Horry, Inside cannon fodder Oberto and Nazr Mohammed, what makes the Mavericks' heart even more tight is that there are two veterans in the Spurs' roster, one is three years ago, Fan San Crazy who went crazy in the playoffs - Van Axel, at the end of the playoffs three years ago, the Mavericks sent Van Axel to Golden State in order to get Jamison, and then played a season and was sent to the Trail Blazers, and this season was signed by the Spurs with a veteran base salary of 1.14 million as a substitute player, but at this time, Fan Axel was 34 years old, It's hard to go crazy again (in fact, this is the last season of Fan's 13-year career, and the Lakers boss before Kobe Bryant announced his retirement at the end of the season).

What really scared the Mavericks was not Fan Maniac, but the former boss who was pardoned by the team at the beginning of this season, Michael Finley, after Finley was pardoned by the Mavericks, he signed a 3-year contract with the Spurs and became the most important firepower point of the Spurs bench, scoring 10.1 points and 3.2 rebounds in 26 minutes in the regular season.

On May 7, 2006, the first game of the Western Conference semifinals officially began, the Mavericks challenged the Spurs away, the substitute Starkerhouse was like a god, scoring 24 points in the game, Nowitzki scored 20 points, the Spurs did not score a point in the last two minutes, but the Mavericks failed to seize the opportunity and lost to the Spurs 85:87, Duncan, is still an insurmountable mountain for the Mavericks, facing the starting Diop and Daniel on the bench, Duncan scored 31 points and 13 rebounds in 12 of 24, With the other players not playing well, (Parker and Ginobili combined for 34 points on 12-of-32 shooting, and no other player scored in double figures), he single-handedly took the game......

This round of the series looks like it's going to be a remake of three years ago......