When the 2010-11 NBA season began the Dallas Mavericks were completely shut out of the championship picture. NBA observers respected the team’s core, and most of us knew that in the hands of Rick Carlisle anything can happen, but nobody was willing to use “anything can happen” as a basis for expecting the team to leapfrog over the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, the stalwart San Antonio Spurs, the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder, the league-leading Chicago Bulls, or the recently-configured dream team down in Miami.

The former New Orleans Hornets could have just as easily been added to that core group of championship contenders listed above, as the Chris Paul-led unit was working with an undefeated record through eight games when it hosted the Mavs in New Orleans in November 2010. One loquacious NOLA security guard, however, saw something in a 6-2 Mavericks team that nobody else had spied at the time, winning over Dallas owner Mark Cuban along the way.

After years of staying quiet, and with the Mavericks in town over the weekend, Andre Menzies discussed why, exactly, he sports what appears to be a massive NBA championship ring every time the Mavs come to town. From the Forth Worth Star-Telegram:

Cuban said: “When we came here that year he goes, ‘You’re going to win the championship. I already know it, I’m positive of it.’

“It was early in the season, and he goes, ‘If you win, do I get a ring?’ I said, ‘If we win, you’ll get a ring.’ ”

On Saturday, Menzies was sporting the championship ring Cuban gave him after the Mavs indeed captured the 2011 title. It’s the same authentic ring Cuban gave his players, and it has Menzies’ name on it.

“The only games I wear it are when the Mavericks play here,’’ said Menzies, who previously worked 17 years as a security guard for pop superstar Michael Jackson.

And from the Dallas Morning News:

“I wrote the check for it,” [Cuban] said.

Menzies said he told colleagues of the promise by Cuban to give him a ring. Nobody believed it until it arrived about the same time the Mavericks got theirs on opening night of the 2011-12 season.

“They asked if it was real and I said I insured it like it’s real, so it’s real,” Menzies said.

The Mavericks earned their championship rings that season. They may have surprised as late-blooming championship contenders, but their title was no fluke.

That doesn’t make it any less extraordinary in retrospect. The Mavs were thought to be just another really good Western Conference team as it entered the postseason, and many had them losing in the first round to the upstart Portland Trail Blazers. The Mavs dismissed those Blazers in six before sweeping the defending champion Lakers in an embarrassing turn for Los Angeles before dispatching the Thunder in five games. Picked by most to lose to a Heat team that seemed to be peaking at the right time after downing the top-seeded Bulls in five games (with four consecutive wins), the Mavericks instead blasted out with a confounding defensive scheme and ultra-efficient offense on its way to the franchise’s first title.

It was swift and unexpected, but hardly a flash in the pan. With that in place, you could have made an awful lot of money that year by picking the Mavericks to win it all by laying down some coin on the team at any point of the regular or postseason.

One wonders if Menzies rues that missed opportunity. Then again, he did get a ridiculously bling-y championship ring out of his knack for basketball premonition.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops