Since July 1 this highly visible NBA owner has been strangely quiet

Tonight at 7 p.m., Shark Tank returns for another exciting episode on ABC. On tonight's show, according to ABC's website, "The sharks tear into a man who claims to have created a watch with health benefits; a mother tries to save her gourmet pretzel business; a man has a small but powerful idea that could make a lot of money."

This apparently is more interesting than the scrapped episode that saw Dallas Mavericks fans rip into one of the sharks for sysetmatically shredding their team like the great white took care of Robert Shaw at the end of Jaws.

Normally Cuban is an active man on the Twitter thingy, but since July 1 - when NBA free agency began - he has been fairly quiet.

He has Tweeted a story about what really goes on in the stock market, a picture from the set of Shark Tank, a story about Apple, and an exchange with Brooklyn Nets' beat writer Stefan Brody of the New York Daily News about the NBA's CBA. Cuban has maintained from the beginning that people don't understand this new CBA, thus partially explaining his need to clear the books.

Cuban also offered a brief exchange with Sam Amick, who covers the NBA for Sports Illustrated.
Amick wrote the following:

"I reached out to Mavs owner Mark Cuban to get his lay of this decimated Mavs land after he missed out on Deron Williams and Steve Nash. Jason Kidd hadn't flown the coup just yet. Cuban, who created all this salary cap space by letting Tyson Chandler, JJ Barea and DeShawn Stevenson walk as free agents in the wake of his team's 2011 title last summer, said briefly, "It's better to miss out on the right player than to sign the wrong player."

This is a philosophy Cuban has embraced for many years, likely as a result having been burned by signing guys like Shawn Bradley and Raef LaFrentz to extensions.

The question is - if Deron Williams was the wrong player, why pursue him at all? Why send GM Donnie Nelson, new team rep Michael Finley and Rick Carlisle to meet with D-Will in the first place?

Cuban also had this funny exchange via his email address with reader Joseph Trevino, who was nice enough to forward it to me. 

Trevino asked a question, rather curtly, based somewhat on my column that the Mavs were suckers to think they were going to be able to land Williams in the first place.

Give Cuban this - he responds to the fans. His response to Trevino was: "Gee. Mac engel said so. It must be true."

Finally ... my genius is recognized.

 

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

Comments

[merritt]

The Mavs will be on the FOR SELL market before long. Mark has had his time in the spot light and will unload the team for a huge profit then purchase another expensive toy to play with.

[jdouglas]

Yeah, winning no less than 50 games for the last ten seasons or so, and then having to rebuild is just ridiculous.... (sarcasm)
So now he is going to bail? If he does you can blame thankless vultures like yourself (and Mac). But that said, I believe you will found to be wrong, like so many other idiots who fail to think before they speak or type.

[Cuban suxs]

Cuban is an idiot. Who knows what he is doing. I love the Mavs and have been a season ticket holder for too long. I'm dumping my tickets if Cuban doesn't at least start to try.

[NBA Salary Cap]

I honestly don't know what's happening with our Mavs. We had an NBA Champion not so long ago. We are totally missing out on getting quality NBA players. We suck. Are we loading up for Dwight Howard, or what???? I don't think Dwight is coming here and I don't think he is that good. Dirk is great but he is old. (and nobody in this town wants to say that)

Cuban has lost his mind. I wonder what he is thinking.

[Eric C.]

I think I enjoy the drama of the off season more than I like watching the games.

Cuban needs to do something. He has a special talent in Dirk and a fan base nationally that is pulling for his squad.

He needs to do something. Soon.

[tross]

I think Cuban was saying that Deron was the right player they missed on, not the wrong player they signed, right? I was confused by this post's paragraph about Deron being the wrong player, etc. Did I miss the humor/sarcasm?

[Elmer Fudd]

tross, you are correct Deron was the right player missed on. Can't imagine why Mac didn't understand that. It has been very difficult around here since the championship to watch the Mavericks let good player after good player walk while bringing in no one at all...