One of the great things about having an owner as involved as Mark Cuban is that when he does something, you know he’s not going to hold anything back. If the man wants a diamond encrusted basketball to celebrate his franchise’s first NBA title, the man will get one.

Wednesday night the 2011 NBA Champions, the Dallas Mavericks finally got their rings. Not bracelets, or crazy hats, or three-fingered brass-knuckle looking contraptions, but rings.

Cuban had claimed that his team was going to celebrate the win in its own unique way; that rings were done. As much as his players kept stating that they hoped the team owner would change his mind, there really was no indication that he was going to.

"This has been a wonderful trilogy of experiences -- the banner, the White House and then the ring ceremony will be great," head coach Rick Carlisle said.

Normally, the ceremony would have taken place long before now, but due to the lockout Cuban was not allowed to talk to his players. He wanted to get their input on the design of whatever the team was going to go with. However, Cuban had it scheduled for the game against the Minnesota Timberwolves Wednesday night so that J.J. Barea could be a part of the ceremony as well.

"Things happen," said Barea "I'm a little disappointed it went that way. But to get to come here and get the ring with everybody and the fans, it will be nice."

In all, Cuban ended up paying $1.4 million, about $40,000 each, on rings for the coaching staff and roster.

The rings were presented in a pre-game ceremony, but the lift from finally getting their rings was not enough for them to be able to defeat the Timberwolves. After ending the first half with a 54-50 lead, the Mavericks came out flat in the second half en route to a 105-90 loss.

“I know everybody is making a big thing about the ring tonight, it’s a great thing to receive the ring,” Shawn Marion said. “We still needed to win this game. That’s what we’re trying to do right now. We’re trying to focus on what’s at hand right now and the current season and focus on trying to take our baby steps to get to where we want to be. Tonight we just took a hop back.”

The loss ended a seven game home winning streak and a 15 game streak of holding opponents under 100 points.

Dallas started their title defense off on the wrong foot, losing their first three games, but have rebounded well since; Wednesday’s loss dropped their record to 11-8 in what is looking to be a very tight race in the Southwest Division so far. The top four teams (San Antonio, Memphis, Houston, and Dallas) are separated by less than two games.

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