For years, the two faces of Dallas sports have been Tony Romo and Dirk Nowitzki. Romo has decided to end his NFL career, while Nowitzki is still getting the job done on the hardwood.
During the Mavericks’ home finale against the Denver Nuggets, the pair are going to become teammates. No, seriously.
According to Marc Stein of ESPN, Romo will sign a one-day deal with the Mavericks and sit on their bench for Tuesday’s game. The former Cowboys quarterback – who announced earlier this week that he will hang ’em up and join Jim Nantz on CBS’ No. 1 NFL announce team this season – will officially become a “Maverick for a day.” The craziest part is that Romo will be in uniform for the game. Wait, no, the craziest part is that Mavs owner Mark Cuban has apparently been alluding to this for a few days and no one noticed.
With starting point guard Seth Curry ailing in recent days and officially out for the rest of the season because of a shoulder ailment, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has said on multiple occasions over the past week that the club would be looking to add “a pass-first point guard” before playing out the season’s final five days.
People within the organization, sources tell ESPN, say he has been referring to Romo.
According to Stein, the Mavericks wouldn’t have done this if they were still in playoff contention. He also reported that Romo will not play in the game.
This, of course, is nonsense. If Romo, who last played basketball in high school in 2003, is going to suit up for the Mavericks, he should absolutely get at least one minute on the floor. Just let him dribble around for a second before he passes the ball to Nowitzki and immediately gets out of the way. Who cares if Nikola Jokic would probably go out of his way to ruthlessly dunk on him? It would still be fun as hell.
And as it turns out, Romo can play a little. For the Win dug up this old interview with Romo’s high school basketball and football coach. As he recalls, “I think he always thought he’d play college basketball and he could have. He was an all state player his senior year and he averaged about 24.5 points a game. He was really, really good, but he’d already committed to Eastern for football. I think everyone thought he was a better basketball player at the time.”
Let Tony Romo play basketball, Mavericks. This is a game with zero stakes for y’all, so you might as well give the people of Dallas one last chance to watch Romo play a sport.
