Coming on the Forgotten Maverick podcast last month, former Mav Nick Fazekas discussed his time spent as a rookie back in the 2007-2008 NBA season.

As a second round draft pick PF/C, Fazekas joined a Mavericks team with an already established front court rotation of Erick Dampier, Desagana Diop, Brandon Bass, and Dirk Nowitzki.  With a crowded lineup of bigs, Fazekas was quickly sent down to the then Tulsa 66ers of the NBA D-League where he spent the next several months before coming back to the Mavericks for 2 games in February, only to be waived so the Mavericks could have enough roster flexibility in order to acquire Jason Kidd from the New Jersey Nets.

During our conversation, Fazekas recalled his time in Dallas by providing some details and memories about his brief experience as a Dallas Maverick.

On his experience in dealing with limited playing time and Mavs coach Avery Johnson : “After training camp….I don’t think Avery was a big fan of mine and I don’t think he wanted a whole lot to do with me.  After training camp I kind of understood that even if there were minutes to be had, I wasn’t going to be getting them.”

On the process of how he was waived by the Mavericks in February 2008 so the Mavericks could have roster availability for Jason Kidd: “Donnie Nelson actually told me to meet him at Starbucks in Plano…He took me Starbucks, he sat me down, he explained it was a business. And I’m like, “Well of course. If I could trade for Jason Kidd, I’d trade for him too.”

However, the most memorable part of the conversation came when he explained that Jerry Stackhouse had instructed him to tell Erick Dampier and Dirk that they had to buy him a new suit, and that Stackhouse would also buy him a new suit, giving him three total.  Dirk and Dampier agreed, and Fazekas was measured for some custom suits at Dampier’s house.  In addition to this, Jason Terry was looking for a golfing buddy, and had arranged for some brand new Nike golf clubs for Fazekas.  Needless to say, Fazekas was excited to be getting hooked up with some new items courtesy of some Maverick veterans.  But things didn’t turn out the way he was hoping.

“So I had all this stuff in the works and I was like ‘This is awesome, these guys are hooking me up.’   So sure enough, I think it was a day or two later and I got sent to the D-League and I never saw any of that stuff,”  Fazekas said.

After his time in Dallas, Fazekas finished that season playing with the LA Clippers before embarking on an international career, where he continues to play today in Japan.

Thanks for listening, I hope you enjoy the episode!