Story about Dirk/Nash pictures

[MavsFanFinley]

Even the Mavericks deserve a shot at privacy

07/18/2003

There is no valet parking here. The front door isn't roped off in velvet. You won't find a VIP room inside. You don't have to wear anything but some sort of clothing to get in.

There's an old couch in front of a fireplace. A pool table is in the back. Most of the illumination seems to come from the TVs.

If a buddy of mine didn't own the place, I'd call his near-downtown tavern a hole in the wall, a dive. It is as unpretentious a place as you can find.

It's the last place you would expect to find any multimillionaire pro athletes accustomed to the pampering their standing provides them.

But well before my buddy doubled the size of his place and hired a fine Italian chef to elevate pub grub to cuisine, his place became a favorite with Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki. They came in together or with friends, usually dressed in T-shirts and jeans like everybody else. They'd have a cold toddy or two, slap a few backs, laugh a little, maybe shoot some pool.

They didn't ask for any favors, didn't cause a ruckus or seek to stand out in the crowd. They just seemed to want to be treated like they were anyone else once again.

In the highfalutin atmosphere of the pro athlete, Nash and Nowitzki are breaths of fresh air, as unassuming as multimillionaire pro athletes can possibly be these days.

At least they were.

Unfortunately for Nash and Nowitzki, there are too many people among us with small minds and little decent sense in them. They live to make things unnecessarily difficult for everyone else, or make something for themselves off everyone else.

To be sure, the World Wide Web was littered recently with photographs of Nash and Nowitzki not playing the game of basketball for which they've become rich and famous. Instead, there are photos of Nash and Nowitzki at some watering hole probably not too unlike my buddy's.

The Mavericks stars are pictured in their dressed-down best. They appear to be enjoying themselves like many people, if not most, do in bars, clowning around and yucking it up. The photos were taken, according to cut lines, after the Mavericks' season ended, not on an eve of Nash and Nowitzki having to go to work.

"Why weren't the photos of a drunk Dirk and Steve ever published?" a reader e-mailed me. "Do we need to protect their status that badly because they give to charities or because they are young up-and-comers in this area? The media gave Steve Nash a pulpit to speak out on political views and allowed this Canadian citizen to criticize the U.S. president ... why not show pictures of him in a drunken stupor?"

For starters, a snapshot is not evidence that someone is drunk.

Furthermore, and more important, neither Nash nor Nowitzki appear to be doing anything illegal.

They don't appear to be doing anything unethical, not like former Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy.

They weren't pulled over afterward for driving drunk or for having run over someone or something, either.

But everyone wants to be thesmokinggun.com now. Or worse, they want to be amateur paparazzi. That stinks.

Judging from the photos, whoever snapped them asked Nash and Nowitzki to mug for the camera. The pair conceded.

Then, like vermin, the photographer scurried off with evidence of whatever, and downloaded the otherwise private time of Nash and Nowitzki, even though they were in a public establishment, for gawkers everywhere.

That's not right. Unfortunately, it's not against the law, either.

Whatever happened to respect? Whatever happened to having your picture taken with a famous person and just sticking it in your scrapbook as a keepsake? Why must some among us take advantage of a celebrity's generosity? Aren't these guys due some time just to themselves?

You could argue that Nash and Nowitzki have no one to blame for the unflattering photos except themselves. They chose to go out in public and, as we say, party. They dared to be themselves, or like everyone else. They refused to be captive to their celebrity.

"The lousy part is that each year ticket prices go up to support the contracts of these guys," e-mailed another reader. "Instead of conditioning themselves to be exceptional athletes and the best at what they do, they choose to go and get plastered in bars and clubs."

That is the very wrong impression of Nash and Nowitzki that some voyeur with a camera left embedded in the minds of many.

No wonder so many athletes just acquiesce to standoffish behavior, hiding out in public in the VIP room or private dining area. With so-called fans like the one who sidled up next to Nash and Nowitzki, they don't need any enemies.