http://espn.go.com/dallas/nba/story...rk-cuban-moves-deron-williams-goes-jason-kidd Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban quickly moved on from the club's failed bid to land point guard Deron Williams. But he's holding a grudge against Jason Kidd, the championship point guard who surprisingly backed out on a deal to return and signed with the New York Knicks. Cuban, during an appearance Tuesday morning on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM's "Ben & Skin Show," said the Mavs actually might be better off without Williams, the homegrown talent and three-time All-Star the Mavs hotly pursued in free agency. Cuban claimed a max contract for Williams would have created tricky salary-cap ramifications and made it difficult to build a championship-caliber roster around him and Mavs stalwart Dirk Nowitzki. "I don't want to pick on Deron Williams because he's a great, great, great player, and so it's not necessarily him, per se," Cuban said. "The conversation we had going back and forth -- and obviously the decision was to go for him -- but the conversation was, 'OK, once you add $17.1 million in salary to what we'd have with Dirk and Trix (Shawn Marion), then what do you do?' That's your squad. And it's not just your squad for this year. It's your squad for next year other than the $3.3 million mini midlevel. "So that was a challenge that we had because we want to win, and everybody talks about Dirk's window. Well, not only would it have been difficult to add players, then it also would have been difficult to trade players, and in reality that was the same problem that Deron had. Because he looked and saw the same thing and said, 'OK, now what are you going to do?'" Williams ultimately agreed to stay with the Brooklyn Nets, signing a five-year, $98 million deal, one year and about $25 million more than the Mavs or any other team could offer. The Mavs recovered by trading for point guard Darren Collison, signing shooting guard O.J. Mayo and center Chris Kaman, and acquiring power forward Elton Brand in the amnesty waiver process. All of those players are under contract for only the 2012-13 season, leaving the Mavericks with flexibility to pursue marquee free agents such as Dwight Howard and Andrew Bynum next summer. Cuban was criticized for not leaving the filming of his TV show "Shark Tank" in Los Angeles to join the team's recruiting party in Manhattan to meet with Williams on July 2. Mavs president of basketball operations Donnie Nelson, coach Rick Carlisle and consultant Michael Finley met with Williams before Nets officials did soon after that. "Obviously, I had a conflict, but I was texting him," Cuban said. "We were going back and forth quite a bit." Cuban said he's not sure he could have swayed Williams' decision had he been there, but he now acknowledges he's glad it worked out the way it did. "Maybe, you know, because I always think I can close a sale," Cuban said. "But in hindsight, I don't know if I would have been happy. I think we're in better position now than we would have been if we had gotten him." As for Kidd, who was prepared to sign a three-year, $9 million deal with the Mavs before backing out the next morning to accept essentially the same deal with the Knicks, Cuban is still fuming at Kidd's handling of the situation and said there's no chance he'll consider retiring Kidd's No. 2 jersey. "I was more than upset. I thought he was coming. I was pissed," Cuban said. "J-Kidd is a big boy; he can do whatever he wants. But you don't change your mind like that. That was ... yeah. I'm sure I'll get over it at some point, but as of now, I wouldn't put J-Kidd's number in the rafters. "It hurt my feelings, period, because I felt that we had developed a relationship, and I thought that he was committed to the organization. It sure seemed that he was. I mean, J-Kidd was active in going out there and talking to Deron Williams the whole time. I guess it was more shocking and surprising than anything else."
Mark Cuban is a jackass, I guess its that Dallas water, all their sports owners are idiots. He let Steve Nash walk, and then he guts his team for a point guard that didn't even sign there.
Come on, son. Deron was disillusioned with the Nets franchise and wanted a sea change. He expressed a lot of interested in signing with the Mavericks and Kidd was interested in backing him up and signing on for less. Dwight listed it as one of his preferred destinations and Cuban acted accordingly. He won a championship, decided to put a rag-tag team together in order to sign Dwight and Deron long-term and secure a competitive franchise long-term. It was a smart decision it just didn't pan out, like a lot of things. A core of Dwight, Dirk, Deron would have made the Mavericks a virtual WCF shoe-in for years. In retrospect he probably should have signed on Tyson Chandler long-term and he could have made a bid on the Dwight sweepstakes but that would've involved an incredible amount of luck in anticipating that the Dwightmare would have went down like it did.
Collison and OJ Mayo cant reaplce what Kidd and Terry. But they definitely upgraded front court with Kaman and Brand.
Though saying they're better off without D-Will is likely PR-spin, it is arguably true. The contracts of Marion, Dirk and D-Will would have seriously hindered the Mavs' ability to do anything with the roster. Also, bringing in Mayo, Collison, Brand, and Kaman isn't too bad of an offseason. All except Kaman have cheap contracts and Kaman's is only for a year.
Did y'all listen to the podcast? He stated they had a agreed upon trade for Kobe, that didn't include Dirk.
Cap Flexibility > Talent and Winning Lulz at Cuban pissy about Kidd when he dumped Chandler to chase Howard. Loyalty
Say what you want about Cuban but he's done a lot since he's bought the team. Granted he's shown as a complainer and whiner to the public you have to remember it's pretty easy for the media to spin words and quotes around to sell papers. Les was really lucky to inherit Hakeem and then able to make trades for Drexler to win both our team's championships back in 94-95'. Seeing as how no one really likes to do over the tax (besides Lakers/Knicks) Cuban's did a lot with so little that he was dealt. True Cuban kinda loses his credibility when he cites Kidd as not being loyal but in his defense Cuban did say he did not think it was in the best interest of HIS organization to overpay and resign Chandler to a max deal. Pretty smart basketball wise to not overpay someone when the core of your team is on the decline. Just sayin and I actually dislike Dallas as much as the next Rockets fan. Hopefully our rookies'll pan out and Dallas actually hands over that 1st rounder next year. At least we'll actually tank like we're supposed to.
Good for them, now they have cap space to go after another player that won't sign with them. Keep trying to convince yourself that you're a big market Cuban. LOL.
