Wait, Brian Cardinal’s Still Playing?

There’s a class of NBA players that only true hoop nerds appreciate. They’re not bad players – they wouldn’t be in the NBA if they were. But they’re basically invisible to everyone else.

Brian Cardinal is one of those guys. Now in his 11th NBA season, Cardinal has become something of a cult hero with the Dallas Mavericks as the drama has ramped up in the NBA Finals against the Miami Heat. Surrounded by brand-name icons (Dirk and LeBron, J-Kidd and D-Wade), Cardinal is the series’ everyman—the balding, plodding, self-deprecating forward. He even has the requisite old-school knee brace. He’s like Brian Scalabrine, only slightly shorter and older.

On coach Rick Carlisle’s depth chart, Cardinal is buried behind Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Peja Stojakovic—a distant moon in the Mavs’ solar system. This hard truth does not bother him. “This is the most enjoyable season I’ve had in the NBA,” Cardinal said. If nothing else, his candor is remarkable. “Everybody wants to play,” he said. “But in the whole scheme of things, we need those guys out there on the court more than we need me because, well, they’re obviously much better than I am.”

“Put the Custodian in there,” said Haywood, referring to Cardinal’s nickname. “He’s gonna be ready, he’s gonna be foulin’.”

During training camp before the 2000-01 season, Cardinal was a rookie scrambling for a roster spot with the Detroit Pistons. He had no delusions of grandeur. A second-round draft pick out of Purdue, Cardinal was a pragmatist.

“I remember walking into that practice facility and soaking it all up,” he said, “because I got there on a Tuesday and figured I’d be gone by Wednesday.”

During that year Cardinal’s nickname hit fellow Piston Jerome Williams while the two were carpooling: “He’s like, ‘You know what? You’re always diving on the floor and scrambling and doing the dirty work. And the name has to start off with the first letter of your first name. The Custodian!’ So he started calling me it.”

And it stuck?

“For the most part,” he said. “In Washington, nobody called me that. I don’t even know if they knew my first or last name in Washington.”