Originally Posted by day1
Each of us will have our own ranking of the best Mavs players. Some of our players went on to make good on other teams, but I think what we are focusing on here is what contribution the player made to the Mavericks while playing here. I tend to think in terms of milestones. So, here are the players that I think deserve to be listed (moving forward in time):
early history
>Spanarkel, Davis, Vincent
first winning season
>Aguirre, Blackman, Cummings, Davis, Vincent, Spanarkel, Nimphius, Harper, Garnett
won Midwest Division
>Aguirre, Blackman, Harper, Perkins, Donaldson, Schrempf, Davis, Tarpley
got to Western Conference Finals
>Aguirre, Blackman, Davis, Donaldson, Harper, Perkins, Tarpley
got to NBA Finals
>Dirk, JET, Josh Howard, Dampier
>(2nd tier) Marquis Daniels, Diop, Devin Harris, Adrian Griffin, Stackhouse
won Southwest Division
>Dirk, JET, Dampier, Devin Harris, Josh Howard, Stackhouse, Diop
won a championship
>Dirk, JET, Marion, Chandler, Kidd
others
>Finley, Ceballos, Bradley, Nash
Fan favorites, memorable moments
>Nick Van Exel, Eduardo Najera, JJ Barea, Peja Stojakovic, many others
Now, before I can rank these players I have to add a little bit of my own bias to it. First, Tarpley cannot be on any "greatest Mavs list" no matter what. No way, no how, no deal! Second, there is still the little matter of the last days of Mark Aguirre. I personally forgive him, but it still bumps him down the list a ways. He is probably the 2nd best player to ever play for the Mavericks, and was part of several milestone moments, but still... Finally, the players under "other" were very important to keeping the franchise afloat and being part of the building blocks that eventually got us the championship. Ok, here is my list:
1. Dirk
2. Kidd
3. Nash
4. JET
5. Blackman
6. Harper
7. Finley
8. Davis
9. Donaldson
10. Perkins
11. Aguirre
12. Marion
13. Stackhouse
14. Josh Howard
15. Ceballos
16. Bradley
17. Spanarkel
then these 15, in no particular order: Chandler, Dampier, Devin Harris, Diop, Marquis Daniels, Adrian Griffin, Schrempf, Cummings, Vincent, Nimphius, Garnett, Nick Van Exel, Najera, JJ Barea, Stojakovic
So, even being pretty liberal, I can only come up with 32. Now, that should not be too surprising, since our franchise is a little over 30 years old.
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