Although the Mavericks made a handful of smart, low-cost moves to fill out their 2012/13 roster and maintain flexibility going forward, the team was still widely considered one of the offseason's "losers," having missed out on top target Deron Williams. However, owner Mark Cuban, appearing on the Ben and Skin Show in Dallas, suggested he feels the Mavs are in better position having failed to sign Williams than they would have been with him (link via the Dallas Morning News).
"In hindsight, I don’t know if I would have been happy," Cuban said of signing D-Will to a max-salary deal. "I think we’re in better position now then we would’ve been if we’d gotten him…. I don’t want to pick on Deron Williams because he’s a great, great, great, great player, so it’s not necessarily him, per se. Obviously the decision was to go for him. But the conversation was, 'OK, once you take $17.1MM in salary to what we have with Dirk [Nowitzki] and [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 $3.3MM mini mid-level."
Since deciding not to re-sign Tyson Chandler and J.J. Barea last December, breaking up the squad that beat the Heat for the title in 2011, Cuban has repeatedly talked about adjusting to the new CBA, including the benefits of maintaing cap flexibility and avoiding expensive, long-term contracts. While it's easy to view his comments on Williams as spin, it's true that committing big money to D-Will would have prevented Dallas from making many other moves to complement its stars.
Cuban added that the Mavs' potential inability to make more moves after landing Williams likely influenced the point guard's decision to remain in Brooklyn: "Everybody talks about Dirk’s window, but not only would it have been difficult to add players, it also would have been difficult to trade players. In reality, that was the same problem that Deron had. Because he looked and saw the same thing and said, ‘Now what are you going to do?’"