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Originally Posted by dirno2000
Chum why is everyone that thinks letting Nash walk was a sound decision riding Cuban’s nuts? I remember driving to Ft. Worth a couple of years ago to watch our summer league team play China when I heard the news…Steve Nash had agreed to sign with PHX. Needless to say I was shocked that it happened so quickly. Then I heard the contract terms and my first thought was “I’d have let his ass go too”. This was before well before tthe blog and any disparaging comments about Bill Duffy. The player that I saw in 03-04 wasn’t worth that contract. You make decisions based on the available information…sometimes it doesn’t work out. You just hope that in the end you make more good decisions than bad. We’re coming of our most successful regular season in franchise history so I’d say the subsequent decisions have worked out ok.
As for setting the team back, I don’t see it. We had a better regular season and a better playoff run after he left. If anything set us back it was having a coach whose heart wasn’t in it but still showed up to work everyday to collect a paycheck. It’s no coincidence that the team improved when it had a coach that gave a damn.
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Well, Dirno, because that's exactly what it was. If I could give you an analogy, it would be this: After the 1994 season, Troy Aikman's contract was up. GM Jerry Jones carefully analyzed who would be likely to offer Aikman a contract, and how much they could offer. He determined that Pittsburgh was the only team that would come after Aikman. Further, he determined that with their cap space left, Pittsburgh wanted to sign not just one guy, but in fact two. He ran all these numbers and decided just how low a number he could offer Aikman and still be the highest bidder. Yes, Aikman had performed admirably and all of that. But there was no loyalty in this discussion. This was all about how cheaply Jones could negotiate this contract.
So he meets with Aikman on the first day of free agency, and he gives his offer. It seems okay with Aikman. It's a shitload of money, that's for sure. But then, here comes Pittsburgh. They are offering a bit more, and they are putting on a hard sales pitch.
You want to stay with the team that you have helped build from the ground up. But, man, you want to be recognized also. Your own team doesn't want you as much as an outside team does? You call Jones to tell him what you have been offered, and Jones says "See you later, cowboy. Best of luck to you."
You go on to win a championship at the hands of those same Cowboys. It's not Neil O'Donnell throwing balls to Larry Brown. It's Troy Aikman throwing balls for touchdowns.
Does that sting your Cowboys heart a little bit? Well, that's what happened when Mark Cuban dropped his pants and showed his white ass on July 1, 2004.
And to me, it stings.
There are bad decisions, and there are the kind of God-awful BAD decisions that set a franchise back for years and even decades. Cuban's hubris in the Nash negotiations was one of those.
I fully believe that there is a Cuban Curse on these Mavericks, and that they won't win anything during his ownership. I hope I'm wrong, because I would sure love to celebrate a Mavericks championship. But I recognize that bad karma like that does not go unrewarded. We saw it last year, when Nash near singlehandedly dismissed us from the playoffs. We have it waiting for us, if we see Finley in another series.
These Mavs are doomed at the hands of Mark Cuban. They have sacrificed integrity and the chance to win for the almight dollar, for a couple million per year on a loyal employee's desserved contract.
Karma lasts a long time.