Mark Cuban and the Art of Team Building

There’s a narrative that the Dallas Mavericks’ front office always fails in the off-season. Free agents never sign here and the draft is neglected. Some media and fans think Mark Cuban has no idea how to build a team. But is that true?

It’s easy to look at the moves Dallas has made since the 2011 championship run and say they’ve failed. They didn’t re-sign Tyson Chandler, Jason Terry, or Jason Kidd. The “keep our powder dry” plan whiffed when Chris Paul and Dwight Howard never signed. There’s the whole DeAndre Jordan fiasco. The trades for Rajon Rondo and Nerlens Noel were disasters. The only major free agent signing since 2011 was Chandler Parsons, and that didn’t end well.

Try and name a Dallas draft pick that’s turned into a quality rotation player for the Mavericks. Kelly Olynyk, Tyler Zeller, and Justin Anderson are thriving in roles on their respective teams, but they were all traded away.

All this sounds like a front office that has no idea what they’re doing, wildly careening from one plan to the next. And I guess you could look at it that way. But I see something different. I see mistakes, and some bad luck. But I also see a plan.

I’m going to use a baseball analogy here, so stay with me.

I see Mark Cuban taking big swing after big swing, something he’s done since he bought the Mavericks back in 2000. If you want to criticize Cuban for something, it’s that he forgoes singles and doubles and tries to hit home runs. He’s not afraid to strike out.

Trading for Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison was a risk. It didn’t work out. Trading for Jason Kidd was a risk. It worked out. Letting the core of a championship team walk was a risk. It didn’t work out. Trading for Rondo was a risk. It failed miserably.

Your greatest strength can also sometimes be your greatest weakness. In his constant quest to hit one out of the park, Cuban often passes over simpler, safer moves, like developing young players or signing players coming off their rookie contracts.

Is it possible the Mavericks have traded away a couple of championships with Cuban’s aggressive moves? Maybe. But they may not have the one ring they do without them, either.

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There seems to be an assumption that there’s only one way to build a team. You have to get at least two superstars, by draft or by swinging a trade, fill out the roster with quality role players, and then collect a ring. Mark Cuban doesn’t see it that way.

No, he prefers to tinker. To experiment. For him, no trade is too risky, no contract too expensive. If he thinks there is a blockbuster move to be made that will turn the Mavericks into an elite team, he’ll try to make it. No matter how risky it is.

This puts the Mavericks in a bind sometimes. Other times, it works out well, like all the moves that led to the 2011 championship.

Cuban has turned the long, painful process of team building into an aggressive game of Monopoly. He runs the Mavericks like he runs his business. He’s a billionaire who can afford to make mistakes, and he has no fear of doing so in the NBA, either.

Maybe you don’t like the way he does things. That’s fine. But I’ll take Cuban’s aggression and mistakes over other franchises’ inactivity. When was the last time the Atlanta Hawks made a huge trade? When was the last time the Charlotte Hornets signed a marquee free agent?

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I’ll take Cuban trying to make things happen rather than an owner content to draft in the lottery year after year without any success. He knows that team building is an art, not a science.