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Mavericks History

1979: Carter Welcomes Back Basketball To Dallas

In the expansion draft the Dallas Mavericks bypassed experienced stars such as Earl Monroe, Rick , Doug Collins, Pete Maravich, and Spencer Haywood. Instead the franchise went with youth-18 of the 22 players chosen by Dallas had less than three years of NBA experience. Although there was some talent-11 of the expansion picks were former first-round draft choices-it was a typical expansion crew. Among the recognizable names were Jim Spanarkel from the Philadelphia 76ers, Austin Carr from the Cleveland Cavaliers, Bingo Smith from the San Diego Clippers, and Richard Washington from the Milwaukee Bucks.

On June 10, 1980, the Dallas Mavericks selected UCLA's Kiki Vandeweghe with the 11th overall pick in the NBA Draft, making Vandeweghe the first college draftee in franchise history. But Vandeweghe refused to play for the expansion Dallas Mavericks, staging a holdout that lasted more than a month into the 1980-81 season. Finally, on December 10, Dallas traded his rights and a 1986 first-round pick to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for two future first-round draft choices.

The trade served the Dallas Mavericks extremely well. They used one of the picks to draft Rolando Blackman in 1981-Blackman became the team's all-time leading scorer. In another move that would pay huge dividends, Dallas traded Mike Bratz to Cleveland for the Cavaliers' 1984 first-round draft choice. Dallas used that pick in 1984 to select Sam Perkins, who gave the club six solid seasons at power forward and center.

The Dallas Mavericks' best move was the hiring of Dick Motta as the club's first head coach. A good teacher and a basketball disciplinarian, Motta had arrived in the NBA as coach of the 1968-69 Chicago Bulls and transformed the club into a winner. After Chicago's 51-31 finish in 1970-71, Motta was named NBA Coach of the Year. He left Chicago following the 1975-76 season to coach the Washington Bullets, guiding them to the NBA title in 1978. Motta arrived in Dallas Mavericks with a 541-443 NBA coaching record.