We're about to enter the silly season, where NHL and NBA playoffs take us until June. Having been a fan of Dallas teams for so long, this has typically been a frustrating part of the year.

Except for the year the Mavs went to the finals, and that still ended up massively frustrating given the team's collapse. Make that the team's choke.

But because Oklahoma City is about to get its own team (board of governors convene on April 17-18) and because Mark Cuban has done everything in his power to make me personally hate the Mavs, I've got to pick another team to pull for in the playoffs.

Thankfully, it will be easy. Go with the Hornets.

The team that spent two years in Oklahoma City will probably get Dallas in the first round, or at least I'm hoping so. Truthfully, I don't think it's a great matchup for the Hornets, but I would love to see them bring more misery to Cuban.

In spirit, I'll be with the Mavs should they get past that round, but it will be begrudgingly. Besides, once the Sonics move to Oklahoma City, I'm a Sonics man. Or whatever we'll be called.

However, I do hope the New Orleans fans step up and give their club a postseason boost. I know if the Hornets were still playing in OKC, the Ford Center would be packed every night, and it'd be loud.

My early pick for the NBA Finals though is Boston vs. Houston.

***

Everything is clear-cut on the hockey side of things. I'm a Dallas Stars man through and through. And, they've stunned us the past several years by being so limp come playoff time.

And they're stunning us right now by seemingly putting it together at the right time, taking a 2-0 lead over the defending Stanley Cup champs, the Anaheim Ducks.

Look, as much as Dallas loves all its sports, winning the 1999 Stanley Cup is still as fresh a memory as I'll ever have. First, we had struggled with great teams for three seasons to get over the hump. Winning it all in 1999 was as much a relief as it was wonderful.

However, the night we won it all, I was playing a gig -- a gig nobody came to because we didn't have the Stars game on. As Game 6 between Buffalo and Dallas went into overtime and then a second overtime and then a third overtime, we put down our instruments and went outside, where we listened to the game on a car radio.

And at 12:35 a.m. or so on a Sunday morning in 1999, with 5:09 left in the third overtime, Brett Hull hit a shot that sent Dallas into all-night party mode. You might think hockey is wasted on Texans or on is Southerners in general. And, you'd think wrong.

This was a big, big deal for the city. And it would be a big, big deal again, although this time it would be a shock.