I was seven when I became a basketball fan, a Mavericks fan. My parents were never big into sports. Not that they didn’t like sports, of course, they enjoyed most of them just fine, but they never had any attachments or fandoms to speak of. I had to pick up Mavs fandom on my own. Kind of.
Everything I did at that age was driven by friends. I liked what they liked. And my best friend? He loved the Mavericks. Indeed, his whole family loved the Mavericks. His parents were first generation German immigrants, who came to Dallas by way of Austin.