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Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks, UTA Movin’ Mavs world’s best

When paired together, the words basketball and dynasty conjure up images of many legendary players leading their storied teams to greatness: Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, the Showtime Lakers of Magic Johnson and later Kobe Bryant, the Celtics of Bill Russell and later Larry Bird and—the local favorite—Tim Duncan and the five-time champion San Antonio Spurs.

All of these teams are dynasties to be sure, but the truth is that only one of them, the Boston Celtics with their 17 NBA titles won over 51 years, can hold a candle to the most dominant professional dynasty in the history of basketball.

There is another team that won nearly as many titles in less than half the time.

The Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks have won 14 National Wheelchair Basketball Association titles in the last 20 years (and six of the last seven), an unparalleled run of championship success that included the Mavericks defense of their title on April 9 of last year. Thanks to Bob Mickleberry’s last-minute layup, the final two of his game-high 31 points, the Mavericks defeated Milwaukee Bucks, 55-54 to win the 2016 NWBA championship division title.

Like any scoring legend, Mickleberry has a point guard who knows how to feed him the basketball in his favorite spot to shoot.  The pass that set up Mickleberry’s game-winning shot came from Jason Nelms, who in addition to being a championship pro player is also the coach of the 2016 national intercollegiate champion Lady Movin’ Mavs from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Prior to playing for the pro Mavs and coaching the UTA Lady Mavs, Nelms played with distinction for the UTA Moving Mavs of the MWBA’s intercollegiate division. Like the professional wheelchair Mavericks, the intercollegiate Movin’ Mavs have dominated their level of wheelchair basketball. Earlier his month, the Movin’ Mavs won their seventh National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball national title by schooling host University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, 76-52, in its own gym. The Lady Movin’ Mavs narrowly missed defending their title and earning UTA an intercollegiate title sweep when they lost the women’s championship game to the women’s team from the University of Alabama.

The Mavericks are in contention every year for virtually every professional or intercollegiate wheelchair basketball title.  If you add up the titles won by the men’s and women’s Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks and the men’s and women’s UTA Movin’ Mavs, you arrive at a staggering number: 24.

Like most of the mainstream sports world, we at MacJournalism would have been completely unaware of this dynastic story had we not attended the 2017 Association of Texas Photography Instructors Winter Conference, which happened to be on the very same UTA campus where the Movin’ Mavs play their home games and where the Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks hosted a junior division tournament.

The photography conference coincided with the Southwest Conference Championships of the National Wheelchair Basketball Association’s junior varsity division.  Photographer Adrian Peña and adviser Dave Winter were lucky enough to sign up for the Sports Photography session taught by accomplished freelance sports photographers and Arlington Independent School District photography teachers Steve Hamm (Arlington High School) and Ian McVea (Arlington Martin High School). Hamm and McVea gave their students, Peña and Winter among them, the assignment to shoot a game from the wheelchair basketball tournament taking place in the UTA gymnasium.

Peña and Winter snapped photos during a tournament game that looked on the surface like a scrimmage because both teams wore Dallas Maverick jerseys. It wasn’t until later that Peña and Winter discovered that they were shooting a tournament game between the Dallas Junior Mavericks Blue and Dallas Junior Mavericks White team. Ironically, the Mavericks Blue team wore white jerseys while the Mavericks White team wore blue jerseys.

While shooting the game, the photographers discovered that wheelchair basketball is very similar to the stand-up version of the game. The players have to dribble the ball. A player is commits a travelling violation if they touch their wheel twice without dribbling the ball. Many people who have played both versions say that the wheelchair version of the game requires more concentration because players have to concentrate on the ball and controlling their wheelchair. Shooting photos at the game made a strong impression on us, and we hope the images in this gallery similarly piques your interest.

The Blue team won the game 52-10, but that’s no knock on the White team. The Blue team has won all of its games. Since November, the Dallas Junior Wheelchair Mavericks Blue team enjoy a perfect 31-0 record. Their only loss, a 70-57 setback on Saturday, came against a Division III adult team, the Oklahoma Rollin Trojans. The Mavericks are the No. 1 ranked junior wheelchair basketball team in the nation.  The team is comprised completely of Dallas-area high school students, which makes their dominance of their chosen sport all the more impressive.

Some day, many of the players that Peña and Winter photographed will probably play for UTA and later for the adult championship division Dallas Wheelchair Mavericks.

The current championship division Mavericks will take the court at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville April 1-2 gunning for their 15^th NWBA title. You can follow their progress at this website, where you can get score reports and watch complete videos of their games in real time.