Vladimir Stepania
Bringing him in does cost the Mavericks 8 million bucks, real money. It is a factor when considering players. Your current situation effects future moves. You guys live in a fantasyland. Regardless of the player it costs Mr Cuban an extra 8 million dollars.
Honestly, mike, I don't care if it costs "Mr. Cuban" an extra 8 million dollars. Mark Cuban used to tell me (the fan) that money was no object and that he wouldn't let the luxury tax get in the way of acquiring better players. He's now reversed his stance.
The Mavericks are in "salary cap hell" (as Randy Galloway might put it) for the foreseeable future. To get better, they have to do one of the following:
1) make a trade
2) draft a player
3) sign a FA
If they make a trade, they can try to dump long-term contracts in the process, but it's difficult to do. Especially when you're also trying to get something for nothing in the same trade.
If they draft a player, it doesn't significantly impact the cap, but in the spot the Mavs are drafting, it also doesn't significantly impact the team.
If they sign a FA, they have to pay more tax. Bottom line. I don't care who the FA is.
So what's the point? Simple. If you're going to acquire a free agent, you're going to have to pay market value. You can't go around saying, "Michael Redd isn't worth 8-9 million dollars. We're not going to sign him. Vladimir Stepania isn't worth 7-8 million dollars. We're not going to sign him either." What player available for a 3-4.5 million salary is worth twice that? Answer: NOBODY.
So if we're going to go into cost-cutting mode and not acquire any new players, fine. But if that was going to be the case, then they shouldn't have told us a completely different story in June. They should have just come out and said the following:
"We're not going to sign any free agents unless we can get an absolute steal. We don't want to pay the luxury tax. Our first goal is not to improve -- it's to save money. Also, we're not going to make any trades unless we can give away guys off the end of the bench and acquire a starting caliber player in return. We don't want to trade any player that logged more than 20 minutes per game last season. By the way, did we mention that Raef has re-dedicated himself?" -- Mavericks Management
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