Dallas Mavericks guard Delonte West is seated in front of his locker in full uniform, his jersey untucked, his size-13 feet bare. With infinite care and meticulous precision, he begins to wrap his left ankle with black medical tape, starting at the forefoot and working his way up. Finished, he lifts his right foot onto the edge of his chair and repeats the pregame ritual he's maintained for years.

"It's just like a warrior getting ready for battle," West said. "You take time to reflect on what you have to do that night for victory. It's like a Spartacus-type putting on your armor."

Since his return to action March 29 from a gruesome dislocated and fractured ring finger that required the insertion of stabilizing pins to properly heal, West has added to a routine most professional players relinquish to the head athletic trainer. West holds out his right hand, palm down, and begins the patient process of wrapping his still-swollen-stiff finger, looping the gauzy black material with his left hand around the ring and middle finger until they're flush, protected for battle.

In the second quarter against the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 15, West went for a steal. Reaching with his right hand, West's ring finger stabbed the basketball and snapped like a stick, bone barging through splintered skin, a sight so ghastly that on first glance teammate Vince Carter spun away and retracted his arms into his chest as if he had touched a hot stove.

West bent over, gripping the right hand as jagged lightning bolts surged through it, although he acted as though he was doing little more than catching his breath.

"The main thing I was thinking about was I'm not going to be able to put a full season together to show this team and show the city of Dallas that I'm committed and I want to be here," West said. "And with the way the bone was sticking out, I thought it might have been season-ending and I wasn't going to be able to show this team what I can do."

When the Mavs signed the 6-foot-3 guard for the league minimum Dec. 12, initially to back up Jason Kidd, they could be confident only in what they knew of the player: fierce competitor, intense defender, crafty mid-range shooter. As for the person, they could only go on what they were told: bipolar, intensely loyal to family, deeply caring, a convicted felon, a survivor.

The unknown part that West would arrive flat broke and sleep in the Mavs' locker room would be dumbfounding. His teammates would soon come to understand why it was not.

"He's a great person, a very caring person," Kidd said of West, who as a youngster on the playgrounds in Maryland and Washington, D.C., was called "Little Kidd" for his light skin and emulation of Kidd's game. "He's a competitor and he can play. He's a big part of our success here. Being around him this season has been great and I've learned a lot about him. He'll give you his last dollar if you need it."

His last dollar. Kidd had no idea how right he was.

Of the six players the Mavs signed to replenish their title squad, West -- who takes medication daily to control mood swings and is less than three years removed from the strange, late-night, gun-toting arrest on his three-wheeled motorcycle that would turn his career upside-down and help drain what was left of his savings -- seemed the one player in need of closest supervision.

Yet, as the Mavs move closer to the start of their title defense, West, 28, has hardly been the biggest of the Mavs' concerns in the locker room. Another emotionally weighted newcomer, last season's Sixth Man of the Year with the Los Angeles Lakers, handled that department on his own bizarre terms. Lamar Odom is no longer with the team. In many ways, the hard-edged West has proven to be the anti-Odom.

He has overcome financial troubles, two recent family deaths and personal injury to thrive in Dallas. He is entrenched as the starting shooting guard, averaging 9.7 points and 3.2 assists in 43 games, and will be relied upon in the postseason to produce as a rugged, two-way player with one good hand if the Mavs are to have a chance to advance.

The layers of black tape slowly push his middle fingers together. This is West's personal time with his music and his thoughts. West always directs his thoughts where he sends his money -- by choice, out of gratitude -- to his family: His mother Delphina Addison, who lives in the home he bought her in Maryland, who has worked two and three jobs her entire adult life, who seven years ago earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland, who works for the Navy and plans to continue toward her master's degree in social work next fall at Howard University thanks to her son; and his father, Dmitri Sr., who divorced Delphina, remarkably amicably, before West can remember but remained in his life and now lives in a home his son purchased.

West thinks about his older brother, Dmitri Jr., and his brother's wife and four children, who live in the house West bought them not far from his mother's home. The brothers talk on the phone every day. Dmitri was the first one West called after the unfortunate ear poke in Utah, the "West willy" that drew a $25,000 league fine, a stern lecture from coach Rick Carlisle and a string of easy pop-shots at West's character.

"He didn't take the situation light. He was real upset with himself," his brother said. "He was disappointed in himself after he did that. I said, 'Bro, what you doing, man?' He said, 'I know, my bad.' He apologized to me because, believe it or not, sometimes it's out of his control because you know that he's dealing sometimes with the medical issue. Sometimes you're like, 'Did he go off again? What are you doing?'"

West thinks about his younger sister, Danielle, living in the house with his mom. Danielle will soon start her career with the Washington, D.C., police department after West put her through college at the University of Central Florida, making sure she always had a place to live and a car to drive.

"I'm proud of her," West said. "She's a tough young lady, as tough as they come."

As tough as her older brother, who seemingly can live without just as long as his family is as secure as he can make them.

"Delonte don't give himself anything. He gives everything," Dmitri Jr. said. "Delonte is a giver. Delonte makes sure that everybody in the family is taken care of."

Everybody is not a loose term.

Delphina had nine siblings and gained nine more when her father remarried after her mother died when she was 10. Dmitri Sr., raised in the Virginia countryside, also came from a large family.

"I have, like, 36 nieces and nephews," Delphina said. "I got great nieces and great-great. My sister is 67, so that's older than most people's grandparents. So I'm saying that he [West] tries to help...