SPORTS The New Mavericks

HELL HAS FROZEN OVER. PIGS HAVE flown. The sky has fallen. No, we’re not talking about the Rangers.

Mark Aguirre and Frank Zaccanelli are running the Dallas Mavericks basketball franchise. Equally incredible, the two might actually make a pretty good management team.

Impossible? Mark Aguirre, the most infamous former Maverick this side of Roy Tarpley, counseling current Mavs and calling front-office shots with Zaccanelli, who once was just another frustrated athlete and Mavs fan?

“What are the odds, impossible to one?” Zaccanelli, 41, said as he reclined in an easy chair in a Piano home that is spectacular enough to serve as the clubhouse for nearby Gleneagles Country Club. “Vegas wouldn’t make odds on it.”

Only in America-or Dallas.

As the Mavericks were born in 1980, Zaccanelli hit town with a wife, a baby daughter, no savings and an income that probably wouldn’t have paid his current electric bill. Zaccanelli, the son of a Syracuse, N.Y., tool grinder, soon met Aguirre while playing pickup basketball and befriended the Mavs’ star, who soon felt he had almost no friends in Dallas. When Aguirre wasn’t feuding with coach Dick Motta or his successor, John MacLeod. Aguirre was being called everything from “wimp” to “choker” to “cancer” by coaches, teammates, front-office executives, media critics and fans. “So much talent, so little heart,” was the constant lament of those less blessed who cheered and invariably jeered Aguirre. He received a majority of the credit for carrying the Mavs to the threshold of the NBA Finals- to the seventh game of the 1988 conference finals against the Lakers in Los Angeles- and he was buried under the blame for the loss. When Aguirre finally was traded (to Detroit for Adrian Dantley) midway through the 1989 season, the odds on his returning in 1996 as the Mavs’ director of player development were a million (laughs) to one.

Imagine Dennis Rodman eventually returning to a prominent position with the Chicago Bulls. Imagine the cow jumping over the moon. Imagine Zaccanelli having the last word on all Mavs basketball decisions.

Yes, the same Zaccanelli who, as just another fan, occasionally approached former Mavs personnel director Rick Sund after games or even in the grocery store to tell him he should have drafted or traded for this or that player. “Zack was very opinionated, as many fans are,” says a chuckling Sund, now Detroit’s personnel director. “But Zack’s a smart guy and he played a little ball himself. Who knows? Maybe he’ll do a great job.”

Today. Zaccanelli is president of Ross Perot Jr.’s Hillwood Development Corporation. While Perot Jr. is the Mavs’ new majority owner, car dealer David McDavid and Zaccanelli also own shares of the team. Yet Zaccanelli is the lone member of the ownership group who knows much about basketball: Perot Jr. and McDavid readily admit they know very little. Zaccanelli was a high school star in Syracuse and a pretty good Division III player at Potsdam State in upstate New York. Around the North Dallas Athletic Club and The Aerobics Center in the early ’80s, Zaccanelli became something of a legend: a quick-tempered, crazy-competitive scorer and scrapper who played pickup and league games as if they were the NBA Finals the Mavs have never reached.

“A really good player, for his caliber of player,” is Aguirre’s deft way of saying, “He was pretty good for a 6-2 white guy.” Aguirre continues: “He was a shooter with a good sense of the game.”

So it wasn’t surprising that Zaccanelli- like a lot of upwardly mobile Mavs patrons who played basketball in high school or college-often wondered who was “at the stick” in the front office. Did the buck stop with owner Don Carter? With president Norm Sonju? With Sund? With the coach? Or was Carter’s initial concept of a “basketball committee” brilliantly designed so that nobody had to take responsibility for dumb decisions?

Zaccanelli acknowledges that the tie-breaking vote and ultimate responsibility on draft choices, trades, free-agent sign-ings-on all big-picture, win-or-lose moves-now belongs to Frank Zaccanelli. He will lean heavily on the opinions of (in probable order of importance) Aguirre. new coach Jim Cleamons and staff, scouting coordinator Keith Grant and chief scout Ron Ekker. But in every successful sports franchi se, someone has to be sharp and bold enough to listen to conflicting viewpoints of coaches, personne! directors and scouts and say, “We’re going to do that.” Like him or not, Jerry Jones has done a brilliant job of that for the Dallas Cowboys. .

Zaccanelli will attempt to fill the Jerry Jones role for the Mavs.

Perot Jr. has made it clear he’ll (wisely) defer to Zaccanelli’s instincts. And Zaccanelli has always marveled at Aguirre’s untapped, underpublicized feel for the game. Aguirre and Zaccanelli, who live about five minutes from each other, remain close friends. “Now that it’s public we’re friends,” says Zaccanelli, “people still ask me. ’How could you be friends with him?’ I say, ’Do you know him? Have you had lunch or dinner with him?’ People don’t understand what a great basketball mind Mark has or how much he has changed as a person.”

People also might not understand how Zaccanelli and Aguirre became friends, how Roger Staubach helped Zaccanelli make his fortune or how Zaccanelli convinced Perot Jr. and McDavid that he and Aguirre basically could replace Sonju and Sund.

This is how.



SELF-MADE MAN

ZACCANELLI’S MOTHER AND FATHER HAD tried for 20-odd years without success to have children. When she was 39 and he 41, she gained so much weight that she went to the doctor to see if something was wrong. Something was miraculously right: She was pregnant, Frank Jr. was an only child.

(On the rough side of Chicago, Aguirre’s mother also felt there was something special about his arrival into the world. One of Aguirre’s earliest memories was of his mother telling him, “You were born for blessings.” And, he says now, “She was right. I have been incredibly blessed.” So has Zaccanelli, though many of his blessings have been self-made.)

Zaccanelli’s enduring childhood memory was of his father, the son of an Italian emigrant, coming home with bloody hands from his tool-grinding labors. Despite the tow pay and relentless monotony. Frank Sr. missed only one day of work in 46 years. Frank Jr. vowed not to follow in his father’s footsteps.

The son was blessed with his dad’s powerful frame. In high school. Frank Jr. stood nearly 6-2 and weighed 195 pounds. His best sport was baseball in which he played shortstop and third base. But his first love was basketball, in which he averaged about 20 points a game at St. Patrick High School. He tried and failed to make it as a basketball walk-on at Syracuse University, then wound up at Potsdam, from which he graduated with a business degree.

Back in Syracuse in 1978, he and a buddy read about the boomtown that was Houston. Zaccanelli didn’t own a car. but he rode with his buddy to the end of the rainbow-to Houston, where a pot of gold surely awaited. He says. “All I had was a bag of clothes and a few hundred dollars.” Zaccanelli took a sales job with a health-and-beauty company, mainly because a company car was part of the deal. He did not get rich quick, but he did get married and have a child, further stretching his budget.

When Houston didn’t prove to be Oz. Zaccanelli tried Dallas, where his company gave him a new sales territory. Perhaps the best money he ever spent-money he barely had-went toward a membership at The Aerobics Center, where lots of newly rich young men jogged, lifted weights and tried to recapture their youth on the basketball court. Recently retired Cowboy legends Roger Staubach and Cliff Harris played lots of basketball at The Aerobics Center in the early ’80s. During the off-season, an occasional Maverick wandered in and joined a pickup game.

Star athletes are immediately comfortable with Zaccanelli. Though never a great athlete, he was (and is) a good one. and he still walks and talks like a guy who knows what it means to compete at a high athletic level. “I understand what the (athlete’s) psyche is.” Zaccanelli says. “I understand the commitment it takes. God-given talent is one thing, but it takes a commitment to refine that.”

On The Aerobics Center court. Zaccanelli was able to show great athletes such as Staubach and Aguirre how seriously he took his hoops. Chuckling fondly, Staubach remembers Zaccanelli the player as a “tenacious cuss” and a “fierce competitor” who needed only to learn to control his emotions and harness his “tremendous energy.” Zaccanelli occasionally wound up on Aerobics Center “probation” for throwing a fit (if not a punch) over, say, an uncalled foul that resulted in a narrow loss. Yet perhaps former Cowboy quarterback Staubach saw a little of his younger self in Zaccanelli.

Staubach began asking Zaccanelli to play in a more exclusive Saturday-morning basketball game on the court in his back yard. There, Zaccanelli got to know Sund and several other successful young entrepreneurs. Zaccanelli says, “I realized that everyone who was doing well was doing so in oil and gas or real estate. These were all bright young guys, but it wasn’t like they were seven times smarter than I was.”

Zaccanelli had changed jobs, but was going nowhere fast with the leasing division of Greyhound, so at night, he began going to real-estate school. About that time, Staubach asked Zaccanelli to join his real-estate firm-on commission only. “Roger said it might take six months before I made a commission, and I told him, ’I can’t go six days without income.” That’s when Roger told me to go see this guy at Reunion Bank who gave loans to young real-estate guys. I said, ’I don’t have any collateral.’ Roger said, “Just go see this guy.’ “

To Zaccanelli’s amazement, the banker offered to loan him $30,000 for nothing more than his signature. Zaccanelli soon went to work for Staubach and about six months later he put together, he says, a $7 million or $8 million transaction. With his first big commission fee, he returned to the bank with profound relief to pay off the loan. He couldn’t help asking the banker why he loaned him so much money on just his signature.

The banker said. “He probably wouldn’t want me telling you this, but Roger Staubach co-signed the loan.”

Staubach says he saw no risk because he saw so much potential in Zaccanelli. “He was our top producer for five years,” Staubach says. “Zack is smart-and he’s street smart. He made a lot of contacts working with us, and he grew a lot and gained lots of experience.”

While Staubach and Perot Jr. were working on a joint venture in 1985, Perot Jr. and Zaccanelli hit it off. In ’86, Zaccanelli left Staubach to become a point man for Perot Jr.-a troubleshooter, a problem-solver, an igniter. Zaccanelli’s personality can be as overpowering as Aguirre’s low-post game once was. In what was becoming known as “Can-Do Dallas,” Zaccanelli continually overcame impossible odds to make deals happen and people happy. He’s as comfortable moving and shaking among the Old Rich as the nouveau riche. Zaccanelli’s disarming pretty-boy charm can cut through the thickest barriers thrown up by the most skeptical, suspicious people. He’ll quickly find a common joy with a potential client or ally-golf? family? the Cowboys?-then make them feel good about themselves and about him, and, ultimately, he diffuses any reservations they have about a potential deal.

From pauper to prince: The son of a Syracuse tool-grinder is a classic product of Dallas’ solid-gold melting pot. Look at him now, rolling from power lunch to five-star dinner in a big black Mercedes, a 10-handicapper at Gleneagles, a father of three and the king of a castle that would have rendered his father speechless, were he still alive. With whom has Zaccanelli played “probably 300 rounds” of golf? With one of the world’s best players. Piano resident Fred Couples, whom “Zack” calls “Freddie” or “Cups.”

So how could Zaccanelli have hired Mark Anthony Aguirre to be the basketball brains behind the Dallas Mavericks?

THOROUGHBRED’S ROUGH RIDE

AS PERHAPS THE MOST SOUGHT-AFTER high-school player in America (at Chicago’s Westinghouse High) and college player of the year (at DePaul), Aguirre learned only this: Trust no one. Certainly not complete strangers. But there was something about this Frank Zaccanelli that Aguirre couldn’t resist. After off-season pickup games in 1982, they began to talk. “There was no fluff to him,” Aguirre says. “There was none of this, I’m just trying to hang out with you because you’re an athlete.’ He was cool. We started going to lunch. I got to know him and his wife (Yvonne).”

As Zaccanelli says, “Mark can be very guarded, but he let me inside the tent.”

Maybe Aguirre needed some company. As Dick Motta said the day the Mavs selected Aguirre with the first pick in the draft, “It’ll be nice to coach a thoroughbred.” More accurately, Motta set out to break this thoroughbred. Infamous Motta line: “I’ve said things to Mark 1 wouldn’t say to my dog.” As unstoppable a low-post scorer as Aguirre could be, Motta didn’t think he had the work ethic or the will to win that could carry a team to a championship.

Aguirre now describes Motta as a Napoleonic motivator by fear: “As a team, we were always separated. We weren’t allowed to hang out together and get to know each other, and we were too young to know what was going on.” While Aguirre was like a grandson to Don Carter, Motta was like a brother to the owner. “Brother,” says Aguirre. trumped “grandson,” so Carter ultimately sided with Motta.

“The truth” says Rick Sund, “was Mr. Carter’s relationship with both of them kept Dick and Mark together much longer (six seasons) than a lot of people thought was possible.”

But the coach and the thoroughbred inflicted many psychological wounds on each other. There was the night that (says Aguirre) he tried to shoot the finger at a writer sitting just on the other side of Motta-and appeared to be flipping off the coach. There was the night Motta screamed at Aguirre as he ran down the court-and Aguirre stopped to scream back. “I wasn’t supposed to do that.” Aguirre says now. “I don’t condone a lot of the things I did. There were times I wanted to crawl under a rock. It was like (he said to himself), ’Mark, I’m embarrassed by you.’ “

Still, as a Maverick, Aguirre averaged a phenomenal 24.7 points per game on .492 shooting. Says Zaccanelli, “There has still never been a better player walk through the door in Dallas than Mark Aguirre.” Though he had more moods than a pregnant woman {a line I once used in a newspaper column that Aguirre’s mother loved), it’s important to note he never ran afoul of the law. He wasn’t a druggie (as Tarpley proved to be) and he never was caught in a motel room with cocaine and topless dancers (as Irvin was). Aguirre’s “crime”: He wasn’t quite as mentally tough as the three transcendent stars of his day-the Lakers’ Magic Johnson, the Celtics’ Larry Bird or the Pistons’ Isiah Thomas.

Yet by the time Motta quit in 1987. the Mavs were deeper in talent than the Lakers, Celtics or Pistons, who were regarded as the NBA’s three best teams. Of the ’87-’88 Mavs, Sund says. “I’ll be lucky if I’m ever again associated with a team that talented.” Starting five: Aguirre. Rolando Blackman, Derek Harper, Sam Perkins, James Donaldson. First three off the bench: Tarpley, Detlef Schrempf, Brad Davis.

All that was missing was a leader who took charge in the locker room and the fourth quarter-a Magic, Bird. Isiah. “You are given leadership (by the coach), then you’re backed up,” says Aguirre. “I was never allowed to be the leader.” New coach John MacLeod saw Aguirre as a first- and third-quarter point machine-he scored an astonishing 27 points in the third quarter of a playoff game at Houston-who sometimes crumbled under the pressure to carry the team in fourth quarters. So MacLeod sometimes replaced Aguirre in the final few-minutes of tight games, which understandably humiliated the three-time All-Star.

Late in the seventh game of the ’88 conference final in L.A., Aguirre went to the bench with what he said was a dislocated finger. Once it was popped back into place, he says, he wasn’t allowed to return to the game for a stretch of the fourth quarter. MacLeod said Aguirre refused to return. Was Aguirre just trying to get even with MacLeod for pulling him in earlier games? Absolutely not, says Aguirre.

The Lakers pulled away. So close, so far: That Saturday was the high and low point of the Dallas Mavericks, who haven’t won a playoff game since that series.

“It will haunt me forever that we didn’t win it all with that team,” says Aguirre.

Midway through the next season, Aguirre was granted his wish to join his buddy Isiah Thomas in Detroit. As a Piston, Aguirre won two championship rings. Aguirre says. “I helped that team to flow, Adrian (Dantley) was bad for their chemistry. But I scored when needed and played a role,” Several Detroit sources say Aguirre simply went along for the ride. Aguirre says he learned to be a member of an impenetrable Pistons fraternity that policed itself. “If there was a problem, it was discussed by the players and it was handled within. It was never mentioned outside the door. That’s essential to winning a championship.”

Through it all, Aguirre maintained his residence at Stonebriar in Frisco and his relationship with Zaccanelli. “People don’t understand,” says Zaccanelli. “that the guy who left Dallas in ’89 and the guy who works for the Mavericks now are two dramatically different people. He has done a great job investing all the money he made, he has a great wife (Angie), three kids he adores (ages seven, five and 10 months) and he is very committed to his church (Aguirre says he and his family ’make it every Sunday’ to Oak Cliff Bible Church, about an hour’s drive from their home).”

When Zaccanelli realized last April that it actually was going to happen-that Carter was going to sell to Perot Jr.-he called Aguirre and said, “Get over here.” Says Zaccanelli, “Mark just hung up and came over. I guess he might have thought something was wrong with one of my kids.” When Zaccanelli broke the news to him. Aguirre just began wandering around Zaccanelli’s house, gazing at the ceiling, saying. ’”I cannot believe it.”

Now Aguirre says. “I had no intentions (of getting back into basketball). I really loved the everyday world-going to the store, the cleaners, seeing the neighbors. This was a God touch. It was His plan to bring me back here to do this.”



PLAYOFF PUNS

FOR THE FIRST FEW MONTHS, THE NEW ownership group was ridiculed around the league for firing Sonju and not immediately replacing him with a proven NBA president/general manager. Conducting a “national search,” Zaccanelli eventually made a highly publicized display of interviewing several candidates, including Mitch Kupchak from the Lakers and Steve Patterson from Houston. Yet why would Zaccanelli want to bring in a proven GM who would want to run the show his way? Zaccanelli is sharper than that. This, basically, will be his show.

As Staubach says. “It’s a dream come true for Frank.”

Finally, the Mavs announced that Sonju’s position would be split between Keith Grant (“promoted” from director of player personnel to vice president of basketball operations) and Jim Livingston (who is, basically, still chief financial officer). Zaccanelli says the Mavs were looking for a man with a good basketball and business mind. “We realized that he doesn’t exist,” says Zaccanelli, who obviously doesn’t believe that. He obviously is that man.

So Grant, who had been running the scouting operation and draft, has been reduced to being mostly an administrator and scouting coordinator who will take care of much of the paperwork and legwork. Without fanfare, Zaccanelli eased Aguirre into the role of director of player development and scout, though the move didn’t escape the hooting notice of many NBA execs. The widespread belief is that Zaccanelli has no idea what he has gotten himself into with Aguirre, who eventually will cause as many problems in the front office as he did as a player.

Yet as a player, Aguirre was an ESPN-addicted hoop junkie who often proved to be a shrewd evaluator of college and pro talent. Aguirre will hit the college trail to do some scouting, participate in draft strategy, advise on trades and occasionally assist with game-planning. If Zaccanelli can focus Aguirre’s eye for talent and strategic detail, fortuitous decisions will result.

Aguirre’s first strong recommendation: Hire Chicago assistant Jim Cleamons. When Aguirre’s Pistons played the Bulls in the playoffs, he used to hang around after Detroit’s practices to watch Cleamons run Bulls practices for head coach Phil Jackson. “I wasn’t supposed to stay in the building.” Aguirre says. “But I loved to watch what Jim did.”

Aguirre and Zaccanelli chose a hardworking, nuts-and-bolts, first-time head coach without a volatile ego-one perhaps more likely to heed an occasional suggestion from them and less likely to protest their presence. Though Aguirre says he does not want to coach-“I’m a player by blood”-he will hang around practice and make an occasional suggestion to a player and he will hang around the locker room and play the role of been-here, done-this counselor. Though Zaccanelli says he’ll continue to run Hillwood Development and visit the Mavs offices only a day or two a week, he will make suggestions on salary-cap maneuvers, player acquisitions and perhaps even how much playing time a player is or isn’t getting.

The key, of course, will be how many suggestions Aguirre and Zaccanelli make, how many become “orders” and how comfortable Cleamons remains with this chain of command. Yet Zaccanelli, of course, sees himself as only a help, not a hindrance.

Though completely unproven. Zaccanelli does share one quality with Cowboys owner/GM Jones: supreme self-confidence. Like Jones, Zaccanelli just believes he’s smarter than most competitors-and he just might prove to be. So far, the Dallas-Fort Worth media generally has lauded Zaccanelli for his take-charge decisiveness. Zaccanelli publicly stood up to immature Mavs star Jason Kidd when Kidd suggested he wanted to be traded. The fraternity-rush job Zaccanelli did on free agent Chris Gatling influenced him to choose Dallas over several suitors. Zaccanelli’s friendship with Derek Harper helped convince free agent Harper to return to Dallas, where he’ll perhaps become the big brother Kidd desperately needs.

Naturally, Dallas fans love hearing will-do declarations from Zaccanelli such as, “Barring injuries, we’ll make the playoffs (this season) and win a championship in three or four years.”

Now all Zaccanelli has to do is deliver. He says, “We’ve had a lot of positive things written and said about us. But if we get criticized, that’s fine. We know we’re smart.”

As arrogant as that might sound, especially coming from a man running a front office with almost no proven NBA experience, it’s a refreshing change for an organization whose executives too often worried most about covering their own backsides. “Mr. Carter was taken advantage of,” says Aguirre. “He was too loyal to too many people for too long.”

As longtime Mavs fan Staubach says, “I won’t be surprised if Zack does a great job. He and Mark might just make a good team.”

Yet will the current “Aguirres” listen to the former one? Already, says one locker-room source, unbroken Mavs thoroughbreds Kidd. Jim Jackson and Jamal Mashburn have been overheard making jokes about Aguirre. How would Aguirre have taken suggestions in the early ’80s from a retired ex-star? Aguirre must realize Kidd was only 10 years old when Aguirre first made the NBA All-Star team. Aguirre and the “next” Aguirre-Jamal Mashburn-have tested each other in quite a few pickup games. But though Aguirre says, “I tell Jamal he’s still the second best small forward in Dallas,” Aguirre isn’t quite the same player who once scored 27 in a playoff quarter.

Yet he once ached for guidance from someone who knew the laws of the NBA jungle-someone he could trust. Last year, he says, he bled for the Motta-coached Kidd and Jackson as they feuded over sharing the ball and a woman’s affections. “That’s over,” says Aguirre with finality. “They’re growing up, and they have to realize that they’re not going to be traded and that they have to learn to play and live and win together. It’s the same thing we went through: They haven’t been allowed to know each other. They can still get mad at each other, but if they hang out together they’ll find qualities they like in each other. You have to be there for each other. Last year they were put in a bad position. They hardly ever practiced, they had no actual fellowship together, they were losing by 50 points and taking bad shots. They were put in a position to blow up.

“They haven’t been taught a good foundation. They haven’t been taught to get over screens (on defense). The big guys haven’t been taught to clog the middle. But I’m committed to giving them everything I learned. They trust me. I’ve told all of them, ’I won’t lie to you.” No one from the organization will ever tell me to tell them anything I don’t think is right. This is my purpose in life right now. I have to get across that I’m much better known now for winning the two rings in Detroit than for all I did individually in Dallas. I had a great opportunity here and I didn’t take advantage of it. That’s tough to live with.”

In a way, Aguirre hopes to atone by helping these Mavs avoid repeating his tragic history. What if he ever watched this group win a championship? “Don’t even go there,” Aguirre says, his voice catching with emotion. “If that happened, I’d be. ..overwhelmed. I think I’d just float on off.”



SERIOUS FOCUS

IT’S FRIDAY EVENING. FRANK ZACCANELLI winds up an interview just in time to greet a dinner guest as he pulls through the iron gates that guard Zaccanelli’s home. It’s “Cups”: Fred Couples. They have an 8:51 tee time at Gleneagles the next morning. “I called Mark to see if he wanted to play,” says Zaccanelli. “He said. ’I can’t. I got a meeting.’Can you believe it? On a Saturday morning Mark Aguirre will drive in (from Frisco to the Baylor Tom Landry Center) for a meeting with the coaches. That’s how serious he’s taking this job.”

You figure Zaccanelli will take his so seriously that occasionally the “tenacious cuss” in him will flare and he’ll lose his patience and temper, as he sometimes did playing pickup ball.

Too bad Mark Aguirre wasn’t bom with a dose of Frank Zaccanelli in his gut. Too bad Zaccanelli wasn’t born with Aguirre’s basketball talent.

Finally, maybe, they can combine their blessings.