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At first Cuban tried to use the $4.9M exception to get Malone or Mourning; two players worth more than $4.9M (if Mourning were healthy and if Malone weren't set on getting a ring), but seemed prepared to take that amount. Cuban was right with those two, but ultimately came up empty handed.
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Unfortunately, no.
This Summer, we recruited Mourning, snubbed Malone, and thus flushed our best chance of significantly improving our team without resorting to trades languidly down the toilet...
Prior to the start of free-agency, Malone clearly indicated to the Deseret news and to Eddie Sefko of the DMN that Dallas was at the top of a very short list of his favored free-agency locations, but following Cuban's widely publicized Mourning visit at midnight of June 30, Malone responded to this affront like a spurned lover- ripping unnamed teams who looked at him as a "10th option" in the press and jumping at the Lakers $1.5 million offer...
Any claims that Malone joining the Lakers was inevitable, are foolishness and fallacy. The terrible truth is that our Dallas Mavericks probably could have signed the hall of fame power forward, if we had responded to his messages in the press by making it clear to the man that he was our first, and best option in FA. Instead, our front office lusted after the paired pipe-dreams of aquiring a lost, and never to return, 1998-form Mourning, and a executing a fantasy sign-and-trade for Jason Kidd...
Malone could have been a Mav, but our pursuit of the fickle and ruined kidney's of Alonzo Mourning not only scuttled that hope, but probably determined what city will be hosting an NBA championship parade next July...