The Dallas Mavericks came into this NBA season basically being considered a good team, but not a great team in comparison to the up and coming Denver Nuggets and the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers.

In the offseason, the Mavs witnessed all the big dogs around the league like the San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers, Cleveland Cavs, Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic upgrading their already dominate rosters with All-Star caliber players.

The defending champs lost Trevor Ariza to Houston Rockets through free agency, but ended up signing Ron Artest as a replacement, which some people believe was an upgrade. So far the signing has paid off even though Artest isn’t putting up the kind of numbers he was with the Rockets.

The Spurs went out and traded for Richard Jefferson, Antonio Mcdyess and drafted a promising young big man in DeJuan Blair out of Pittsburgh. Despite Blair looking the future of the frontcourt in San Antonio, Jefferson has been a bust and won’t last long as with the Spurs after this season.

The Celtics and the Cavs looked to upgrade their frontcourt in the offseason by Boston signing veteran versatile forward Rasheed Wallace and Cleveland trading for Shaquille O’Neal. So far Shaq has been a good addition to an already dominant team lead by LeBron James, but he will be out the rest of the regular season which could hurt the Cavs if they have to face Orlando early. Wallace has played good at time for Boston, but ultimately he hasn’t been the game changer the Celtics were hoping for when they sign him.

The Orlando Magic cruised through the Eastern Conference playoffs last season and almost swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference finals, but after losing Hedo Turkoglu to the Toronto Raptors through free agency, the Magic made a trade with the New Jersey Nets to bring in Vince Carter which has made a great offense even better.

With all this wheeling and dealing before the NBA season no one really gave the Mavs a chance to compete in the West this season, but after winning an NBA best 13 straight games with a victory over the lowly New Jersey Nets on Wednesday night, the Mavs are making a late season push for the second seed in the Western Conference heading into playoff time.

As if winning 12 straight wasn’t impressive enough, the Dallas Mavericks might be able to extend that streak to 15 straight if they can beat the New York Knicks and the Chicago Bulls over the next week.

Despite Dirk Nowitzki having one of his worst games of the season against the New Jersey Nets Wednesday with just 12 points on 3 of 16 shooting from the floor, future hall of famer Jason Kidd picked up the slack with 20 points, nine assists and four steals to lead the Mavs to the 96-87 victory.

Caron Butler and Shawn Marion also had notable performances with 18 points from Butler and 14 points and 13 rebounds out of Marion.