Mark Cuban: Mavs not locked into star free-agent strategy
BY STEFAN BONDY
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But Mavs owner Mark Cuban wanted to set the record straght last night amid speculation that his team will be gunning for the top free agents. Asked what separates him from Mikhail Prokhorov in the eyes of star free agents, Cuban said. ...
"That's not the way I work. You don't play for an owner, you play for a team and that's the way we kind of present it. But you know what, let me say this, there's a lot of presumptions going on about what we're going to do this summer, but you shouldn't pay attention to anything you've read or heard because that's not the way we approach things. We're the last organization to get one thing in our mind and that's the only thing we're going to do. These guys here know I'm going be opportunistic, we're going to try to create a championship team or continue to be a championship team and that's evaluating everything in front of you and making the right decisions with the new CBA. The old rules aren't the same as the new rules so putting together a championship team it could be a completely different approach. So it's not about, or it may or may not be about which free agents, or free agent -- it could be a whole different approach. So we'll wait and see. And it's the same discussion I have with anybody that we have a very specific way that we think it takes to put together a championship team and we're going to continue to do it. But we're not going to just throw out one way and say that's the only way it goes, because that's typically the wrong way."
That may be because the Mavericks don't have enough cap space to sign two max players this summer, as noted by Zach Lowe of SI.com. Or, as an idea that Cuban pushed, it's because the strategy of surrounding superstars with minimum salaried guys isn't a championship-winning formula.
"The CBA changed. All right, and you can't just look at things the exact same way you did before. Before if you went to the luxury tax, you paid dollar for dollar and there were no competitive issues. Now, you get up there it's a lot more expensive, but more importantly, you're limited on trades, you're limited on ability to add players. There's a lot of different issues. So if you have three stars or two stars and the rest minimum players you can win a championship, remains to be seen."
I've heard Cuban say this before, but it didn't get much press. Now he's reiterating this again.
Because he's already got a great big man, I think the Mavs could very well only push for D-Will since he'd definitely be a boost over kid at this stage and use the rest of the money to spread it over several players.
We'll definitely see how this plays out.
I do agree that 3 max players may not be best, especially if LBJ and D-Wade are already locked up in Miami.
