Some of my readers commented that I have been very harsh on Mark Cuban lately. After all, he was the owner who delivered the first NBA title to the Dallas Mavericks.
A fellow writer pointed out that he paid $US 102.9 million in player payroll in 2010-11, the championship year.
I am not bitter because he wants to be fiscally responsible in the coming year, but I am upset that he made some wrong decisions after lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
I care about the entire Dallas Mavericks organisation: players, fans, coaches, management and even the owner. So when someone does something that hurts the team, I get annoyed.
If I had been writing a year ago, I would have ripped into Lamar Odom once or twice a month. I might even do a retro diary of Khloe and Lamar so I get to trash him.
This moratorium period wasn’t just hard for me, it was hard for everyone who follows the Mavs, and I can’t even imagine what Dirk has been going through since Deron announced he wasn’t coming and JET decided to go to Boston.
He is now the only guy left from 2006, the year that made 2010 possible. Terry was the other player who played in the 2006 finals. I never thought I would see him play for another team. He might have been the sixth man for the Mavs but to me and other fans he was the second face of the franchise.
I grew up watching him coming off the bench and swishing threes, and if it weren’t for him, the laughter we got from the Miami Heat Welcome Party wouldn’t have lasted till recently.
Next season is going to be difficult, not just because I have never been there when the Mavs missed the playoffs (I was too young to be a fan back then). The fact that I will have to watch Dallas games while feeling angry for my favorite player, who must at least feel somewhat betrayed by the people he trusted, will be the hardest part.
I don’t think I can ever truly understand why Mark Cuban and the management adopted this strategy. But, I thought, maybe I should lay off the man a bit, try to put myself in his shoes.
So this is what I have done, a hypothetical retro diary of Mark Cuban’s thoughts for the past two weeks or so.
Before D-Will made his decision
Mmm, maybe we should start printing Deron jerseys. I mean, there is no chance we aren’t getting him. He’s from Dallas, so it will be a homecoming, he’ll be the most popular American basketball player in Texas. He wants a ring, right? We have Dirk and JET: a top 20 player of all time, and the fourth-highest three-point scorer who swished this.
We have Jason Kidd, his buddy and probably the guy he wanted to be growing up, who also happens to be third on the three-point field goals list. We’ve got Shawn Marion, a former All-Star who is one of the best defenders in the league. We even got the corpse of Vince Carter’s past glory, and we have Yi, so he can be sure that the whole of China will be watching Dallas games and he can be in the sequel of this movie.
He will be playing under the best coach in the league, Rick Carlisle. He made LeBron choke. And come on, I am the best owner in the NBA. Everyone wants to play for me. I spent more than $100 mil to get Dirk, why wouldn’t he want to play with me?
Too bad Dwight Howard screwed himself up when he decided he didn’t want to be hated like LeBron. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he managed to make people loathe him. He could be playing with Dirk and Deron next season. I even let Tyson and J.J. Barea go for that guy. Argh, and I miss his girlfriend.
Letting Jason Terry go
Jason asked me to match Doc Rivers’ offer and I was like “What is this, Gossip Girl?”
I mean, if I want to sign a solid 30-plus player who wants a long term deal I would have signed Steve Nash, right?
When the Mavs were pitching D-Will
I better get an Emmy for this Shark Tank show. It will go nicely with my Larry O’Brien Trophy.
And Jay-Z, good luck taking on Joe Johnson’s $90 million and having him as your poster boy.
D-Will staying with the Nets
What Just happened? What now? How do I tell Dirk? He gave up $16 million just so I could sign some good players to play with him.
I am sorry, Dirk. Wait, I can still get some players. Let’s see, Steve Nash, Jeremy Lin, Brandon Roy. That’s not all bad, we can still make the playoffs with these guys.
Upon hearing other teams’ offers for these players
I want to sign Dwight Howard next season… Mmmm maybe I can get Donnie to convince Nash to take 60 cents on the dollar, I mean he did say if we don’t get Deron, we should give him a call. And I mean come on, he will get to play with Dirk.
Nash to the Lakers, Roy to the Timberwolves, Lin’s eight-figure offer, Kidd to the Knicks
You have got to be kidding me.
Can we get anyone on a short contract so we can still, maybe sign Dwight Howard? What about Camby, Elton Brand, the guy who got released by the Lakers, Iverson, anyone? SCAL?
…
I genuinely think this was what went through Mark Cuban’s head. He put all his eggs in one basket and it almost paid off for him. Donnie Nelson said ‘we were on the five-yard line and felt good about it’.
I believe he was as shocked as I was when Deron posted that tweet. I still think he could have tried harder but I guess that’s how life works, someone has got to miss out. What I don’t understand is why he did a double or nothing with Dwight Howard? It is quite obvious what he was implying when he was quoted to have said “It’s better to miss out on the right player than to sign the wrong player.”
He clearly thinks Howard is the right player and he is worth waiting till 2013. The problem with that is perhaps he has forgotten that sport isn’t just business, players not named Deron Williams or Dwight Howard have feelings too. It’s only logical that these players signed with other teams once he made them feel unwanted. Why would they still want to sign and play for him when he neither offered them the most money nor equipped them with the best team to win.
In saying that, Mark Cuban may have a bigger plan that he isn’t telling us. After all, as Bill Simmons put it, “Cuban’s most indefensible decision (letting Steve Nash leave, then spending Nash’s money and more on Erick Dampier) doubled as his smartest decision (had his team not thought of making the last year of Dampier’s contract unguaranteed, it couldn’t have flipped his voidable last year for Chandler in 2010).”
He might have out-thought the rest of the NBA, and when that day comes, I will definitely feel incredibly ashamed of doubting him. But can you really blame me? With Dwight Howard close to striking a deal that he wants. And you read memes like this, this and this.
At times when someone writes a report like this, you can’t help but wonder, is this the end?
Nick Jungfer
Roar Guru
GREAT article mate really enjoyed it. I assume you;re a Simmons fan, quite a Simmons-esque article (which is a good thing!). Feel sorry for you & Dirk though..
mushi
Roar Guru
Mayo is already better than JET is right now (slightly worse offensively – major upgrade on D especially with Kidd gone), is an entire decade younger so still some potential upside, looks to be cheaper at around the $4m mark and is on a shorter deal. So is it better to get the younger, more capable players for less money and with more flexibility?
mushi
Roar Guru
wookies on endor
Scotty Barby
Roar Guru
How does that have any relevance to anything?
Nicholashugo
Roar Pro
Mark Cuban just engaged into a twitter war with Bill Simmons and you are telling me to settle down?! My world just exploded.
Scotty Barby
Roar Guru
Mavs just signed OJ Mayo... Collison Mayo Marion Dirk Kaman Beabouis Carter D Jones Brand Solid squad, playoff lock. Mayo becomes Jet, you can settle down now.
mushi
Roar Guru
Three things: First other factors against the clips. Sterling will need to spend money for the first time in his life – hardly a lay down right? Second Howard’s surgeon has cleared him for no further problems. Now absent getting a different view from someone that is both an appropriate type of surgeon and has access to his files, you have to kind of trust that right? You also can’t raise this as a concern and then advocate signing Steve Nash who has had back problems back to when he played for the Mavs and will celebrate his 40th by the end of the contract. Third, cap space isn’t just for signing free agents. It gives them flexibility to add assets and take advantage of the type of bad management that overpays veterans or needs a third party to facilitate trades. But I just don’t get what the alternative approach you want is. Nash and Jet aren’t putting this team over the top (though I think you’d need one of those professional kid napping teams from south America to get Nash to accept a the Dirk/Jet combo over Kobe/Gasol/Bynum) so committing to them for three years just obliterates your team? It would be the Triple J era all over again
Worlds Biggest
Guest
You also have to go back to letting Chandler go, the best defensive centre in the League and only centre in Team USA for the Olympics. He was the glue for the championship team. I think Cuban rolled the dice letting Chandler go in the hope of securing Howard. I can understand a team rebuilding needing to move on veterans like Kidd and possibly JT. In saying that as a Celtcis fan I'm happy with JT as I think he's an upgrade over Allen.
Nicholashugo
Roar Pro
The crown jewel of the 2013 free agency is Chris Paul but I don't think he will leave the clippers, a big market team, unless Blake's injury is a lot more severe th an we think and detrimentally affects clippers' chance of ever contending. If you take him out of the equation, you end up with two centers in Bynum and Howard who can qualify as max players, and that's subject to which player will the lakers take off the table. So realistically the Mavs will have a chance at getting one franchise center that has injury concerns, either one with a back problem or one with bad knees.
mushi
Roar Guru
I read they have enough room for two max players (depending on years experience). Not many other teams with max room can say our owner pays tax if it means the team will be good.
Nicholashugo
Roar Pro
It all depends how well this team gels together this year, drastic change to the roster, Carlisle might be able to do something about it, but they probably need more than one season to play well together. They are also trying to recruit legit superstars to play with a 35 yo Dirk and that's about it. You see how they might think like Deron and be like that's not enough to get me a ring. And from what we have learned from the heat, you need your role players as much as your stars. You gotta wonder. If veterans would want to play for the Mavs now that they have seen how older stars get treated there. It would be tough for us to recruit solid underpriced role players or future hall of farmers/over their primes players to compliment Dirk and other potential superstars we may or may not be able to get.
mushi
Roar Guru
Oh they aren’t going to win the title but somehow they’ve remained mid level competitive whilst still having tons of cap flexibility for a shot at a big name free agent. With collision they’ll still get first bite as he’s a restricted FA. There are really only two sure fire ways to compete for a title for the three to five years: Plan A) sign one or two of the 5 tier 1 (you can build solely on their strengths) or 5 Tier 2 super stars (you need to bring other strengths to the roster) Plan B) find the next generation of Tier 1 or 2 players either by out-thinking the entire league (pretty tough) or getting lucky in the draft. So what happens next year – you repeat the process. You swing for Paul, Howard or Bynum. If that doesn’t work you can use your cap space to facilitate trades and pick up value to try again the year after. Now you could have signed Nash (though I’m not sure it was ever his #1 destination), Jet etc to three year deals but this essentially rules out both plan A and B as you won’t have cap space to get the top players but you’ll be just good enough to avoid the early lottery where the stars come from. So you’ve essentially condemned the team to the old Washington Atlanta death spiral where your players aren’t good enough, your financial position isn’t flexible enough and your draft picks aren’t high enough.
Nicholashugo
Roar Pro
This was submitted before they signed anyone, I do think Collison is sneaky good but sadly we only get him for one season. And JET, we don't have any 3 point shooter as of now and he has done enough for the organisation to warrant a contract that lets him retire in a Mavs jersey. Well Elton Brand might be good once Chris Kaman gets injured but I don't see how they play all 3 together with Dirk definitely starting before him. Jones is a denfensive specialist, but when we have Marion, you wonder how many minutes he is gonna play. I like how the Mavs managed to surprisingly salvage the team and we might actually make the playoffs this year but you can't help but wonder, what's going to happen next year?
mushi
Roar Guru
Not ripping or being terse here. But I do wonder why your attention is on Cuban and not the GM. Every other owner pretty much only gets ripped when he does or doesn’t pay tax (Sarver) rather than the individual moves or habitual stupidity (Dolan). But that aside, He swung for the top free agent. Cuban’s stated, rightly or wrongly, under the new CBA that you can’t be a tax payer that is just “competitive”. He’ll pay tax to have a shot at the title, but bringing in an aging Nash, keeping Jet and signing a knee less Brandon Roy doesn’t really get them anywhere near that and saddles them without any flexilbity to improve. Instead they’ve grabbed Collison, Jones and Brand who they can keep or jettison for cap space next year. They will give Roddy B enough burn to see if he can play the Jet role and are now the front runner in the Howard/Bynum/Paul sweepstakes next season with the capacity to offer circa two max contracts right.