Mark Cuban defends his actions with the Dallas Mavericks this season
Never one to hold back his opinions on any subject matter, Dallas Mavericks’ owner Mark Cuban has something to say to all of those who have been questioning his action in regards to the Mavs this season.
In the wake of their embarrassing first round playoff sweep at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder, fans are understandably angry at the way their season ended, losing so many key players.
Prior to the season, the Mavs lost three key contributors to last year’s championship team: Tyson Chandler, J.J. Barea, and DeShawn Stevenson. In addition, though the was injured during the post-season during the Mavs’ title run, Caron Butler was lost as well.
Cuban , fed up with the media’s questioning of his actions, explained that the reason he could not resign any of these players was because of the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, which made it all but impossible to keep these guys in Dallas, claiming that the franchise had the best team they could have possibly put together under the new CBA guidelines.
Frustrated with all the questions, Cuban had the following to say:
“I’ve heard some of the talking headless (media), and all I can tell you is, within the collective bargaining agreement we did everything possible to put the best possible team on the court. Period. End of story. If someone wants to read it (the CBA) and tell me otherwise, go ahead.”
When asked if he had any regrets about not bringing any of the players back, primarily Tyson Chandler who was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, Cuban was quite blunt in his response.
“Hell no. Nope. Not even a millisecond. Because those who are talking otherwise haven’t read the CBA and are just talking out their (expletive) without any foundation. But that’s what you guys do.
But the out-spoken owner does admit one mistake.
“If you want to nail me for something, I’ll be the first to admit that it was a huge (expletive) that I didn’t fight for the new (CBA) harder. I’m the first to say that.
“That was my mistake, because once that thing passed, our hands were tied in a lot of respects. But within that, we did the best we could.”
So if the Dallas Mavericks had still had Chandler, Barea, or Stevenson this season, would things have been different?
Unfortunately for Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks, the world will never know.
What’s done is done.
Now, there is nothing left to do for the Mavericks but to rebuild for next season.
