This afternoon, we relayed some notes from Mavericks owner Mark Cuban's interview on the Ben and Skin show on 103.3 ESPN Dallas. After the show, Mike Heika of SportsDay DFW caught up with Cuban to ask some follow up questions on the team's recent additions, the team's future, and the approach they took heading into the 2012 offseason. Here are some highlights:
When asked if the team will be building on a year-to-year basis in terms of handing out one-year deals:
No. We will do things like we always have done. We will be opportunistic. I'm not sure why everyone is dismissing the players we signed and traded for as if they don’t count. My hope is that we can stick with the guys we have and develop them and this team into champions. Nothing would make me happier than for OJ and DC to be the nucleus of our back court for years to come and Dahntay , Elton and Chris Kaman to play for the Mavs for years to come.
Once we see the identity our team takes, and our strengths and weaknesses we will look to fill in pieces from there…Most likely those changes will come from trades, just as we have done for the last 12 years, but we will have the additional option of using cap room to facilitate trades or signings. Or we can use our cap room to re-sign our own guys, which is what I really hope we have to do.
On whether or not the team will try to re-stock with high draft picks moving forward:
"We approach things the same way every year. That won’t change. We will be opportunistic. THere are too many things that change year to year to set your sites on one player, or one way of doing things. That said, the one thing you can’t change is players don’t get younger. You have to take into account the age of your team and the impact that has on where you are and where you will be… At some point you have to get younger, so we planned to have most of our contracts expire over 2 years. We stuck to that plan to get younger. But within that, as always we try to be opportunistic and I think we have done a good job over the years."
On the team's approach to plan for roster flexibility this summer after winning the championship in 2011:
"…we would not have traded for Tyson or signed Peja or others if they had more than 1 year deals. That was our plan and we stuck to it…And one more point. Just to be clear to all Mavs fans. The one thing we DON’T do is set our sites on some future free agent. We haven’t, don’t and won’t have a specific future free agent as our goal. That is just plain stupidity. Whenever you read or hear that the Mavs have their eyes on such and such a free agent next summer, its a lie. The person saying it is making it up or has gotten it from someone who has made it up. We don’t and won’t work that way."