10 Things Mavericks need to do to gain respect in West with the help of Jim Varney

1. Dallas Mavericks need to win

Here’s a novel idea: if you’d like opponents, fans, and the media to regard you as a respectable team, win more games. With a dozen contests left on the schedule, let’s see the Mavs finish 9-3. Get out of the play-in. Maybe even push the Suns for that number four seed.

Which is doable. They’re three games from that seed, and while it’s easy to roll our eyes at the notion that they could get hot, enter the playoffs as a four or five-seed, secure a first-round series win, and at the very least, restore some respectability to what has been a disappointing season, the means of achieving it are all there, laid out clear as day in nine incredible achievements in cinema.

And if Dallas pulls it off, then allow me to quote from a role for which the younger readers will recognize Jim Varney: Woody’s sidekick Slinky in Toy Story. “Never doubted ya for a second,” Slinky tells Woody after his worries about being replaced by newer toys have been assuaged. 

It is okay to have some skepticism, but let's not be scared stupid by it, and instead leave ourselves open to the possibility that the Dallas Mavericks will ride again if they can just channel the wisdom of the immortal Jim Varney. If they do, we can all lie and say we never doubted them. Not for a second.