{"id":404488,"date":"2026-08-12T12:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404488\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T12:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T12:12:18","slug":"the-dallas-mavericks-need-to-retire-jason-terrys-number","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/404488\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dallas Mavericks need to retire Jason Terry\u2019s number"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jason Terry got a tattoo of the Larry O\u2019Brien trophy the day before a Dallas Mavericks<\/a> preseason game the year they won the NBA Finals. Everyone knows the story. It\u2019s not just something people in Dallas talk about, it\u2019s one of those NBA anecdotes that\u2019ll be passed around for as long as the sport of basketball is relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a legend. Folklore, I call it,\u201d Terry told Mavs Moneyball\u2019s Mike Taddow back in 2019.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he first got the tattoo, I said he was crazy,\u201d DeShawn Stevenson said at the time.<\/a> \u201cI didn\u2019t say it to him. But I\u2019ve never been to the [NBA Finals], and for him to have that now. Wow. And he got that tattoo in October, and it means a lot with what we\u2019ve been through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting a tattoo of a championship trophy you haven\u2019t won yet is bold. It\u2019s brash. It\u2019s Dallas.<\/a><\/p>\n

In Through Painted Deserts, Donald Miller wrote \u201cDallas blew in on the wings of a Gulf coast hurricane and rained glass and steel onto a field of bluebonnets.\u201d It\u2019s a city that appears out of nowhere on the North Texas plains, gleaming skyscrapers beside a muddy river, sprawl in all directions built on swamps and farmland. In Dallas, all you need to be a star is the confidence that you can be a star.<\/p>\n

Terry brought that type of bravado into the 2010-11 season when he got that tattoo, and even better, he backed it up during the Mavericks\u2019 run to the championship. He averaged 17.5 points and 3.2 assists per game and shot 44 percent from deep during that postseason. Terry hit a ludicrous shot over LeBron James from 25 feet to seal Game 5 of the Finals, a shot he absolutely shouldn\u2019t have taken, but only he had the courage to put up. It\u2019s a legendary shot, one that should be talked about more when discussing the greatest shots in NBA history.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever the most talented, far from infallible, always a hero,\u201d Andrew Tobolowsky wrote about Terry in 2013.<\/a> The perfect way to describe someone who would take such a ridiculous shot\u2014and make it.<\/p>\n

Terry finally stepped up to be the costar that Dirk Nowitzki needed all those years. Nowitzki was the steady presence, the backbone of the team. Terry provided the fire, refusing to believe that anything but a championship was possible. That alone makes him one of the most important players in franchise history.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s the stats, of course. Terry is ranks eighth in franchise history with 619 games played. He\u2019s third in 3-pointers with 1,140, and eighth in assists with 2,524. He\u2019s fifth in steals with 735. Always a scorer, he\u2019s seventh in points with 9,953.<\/p>\n

The playoff numbers are even better. Terry is third in total playoff points for the Mavericks with 1,466 scored. He\u2019s played the second-most playoff games in franchise history, suiting up for 87 postseason games. He leads the Mavericks in all-time playoff 3-pointers with 167.<\/p>\n

But this isn\u2019t about the stats. It\u2019s about what he meant to the franchise. What he meant to Dallas. Terry was there through it all. The Finals collapse against Miami in 2006. The meltdown against Golden State in 2007. The lackluster playoff exits the next three years. Terry suffered through every obstacle, every setback. It was him and Dirk the whole time.<\/p>\n

Even with all that on his back, he had the confidence to get that Larry O\u2019Brien tattoo. He refused to let the losses in the past define the future. Instead, he bent the future to his will with pure belief and faith in a success he and his teammates hadn\u2019t yet seen. What\u2019s more Dallas than that?<\/p>\n

The Mavericks made things right when they retired Mark Aguirre\u2019s number last season.<\/a> It\u2019s time for them to do the same to one of the most important members of the franchise\u2019s only championship team so far. Jason Terry deserves to have his number retired, and his name hanging in the rafters of the American Airlines Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Terry got a tattoo of the Larry O\u2019Brien trophy the day before a Dallas Mavericks preseason game…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,40012],"class_list":["post-404488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-mavericks-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}