Mavs Spotlight - Shawn Marion (Offseason Edition)

Earl K. Sneed, Mavs.com
Mavs Spotlight - Shawn Marion (Offseason Edition)

"Mavs Spotlight" is a series of exclusive one-on-one video interviews conducted by Mavs.com's Earl K. Sneed with various Dallas Mavericks players and coaches. In this edition, Shawn Marion says the team will learn from its first-round defeat to San Antonio and come back stronger next season.

Perhaps no player sacrificed more than Marion to help the squad contend for an NBA championship. The former All-Star put his offensive numbers aside and concentrated on the defensive end of the floor, locking up some of the game's best perimeter scorers all season long.

"He's sacrificed so much of his game this year -- to be one of the best defenders, to get rebounds, to be a screener and a movement-maker," Mavs coach Rick Carlisle said when praising the star during the season. "Every week I tell him how important he is to us, and how much as a coach I appreciate what he's done this year. He is the guy who's made the biggest adjustment of any of the new guys we got."

The versatile forward also slid throughout the lineup, spending time at a multitude of positions for the team over the course of the season, even playing center for the "small ball" unit.

But after watching his team fall in six games to San Antonio, Marion heads into the summer with a new focus. The veteran will once again be thirsty for a title, only this time he will be serving up daily reminders to his teammates of the heartbreak of not reaching the mountaintop this season.

"You have to take the good with the bad. You have to learn from it, and you just have to come back more hungrier. You get a taste of certain things, and you just want to go out there and do it," Marion said.

In case you missed it, here's what Jason Terry and Caron Butler had to say, as they head into the offseason.

The series continues Tuesday, when "EKS" chats with Dirk Nowitzki. For all of your off-season news on the Dallas Mavericks, visit Mavs.com. Follow Earl K. Sneed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/EarlKSneed.