ESPN Is Wondering Where The Hell Cuban Is

[Mavs Rule]

Western GMs play game of touché

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By Frank Hughes
Special to ESPN.com


According to my very exclusive sources with intimate knowledge of the situation, NBA commissioner David Stern received a phone call Friday morning from Los Angeles Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, who complained that San Antonio Spurs general manager R.C. Buford made an inappropriate gesture.

Apparently, during a video conference call, Buford sat on the edge of his desk, grabbed his crotch and yelled, "Take that, Mee-yatch."

Of course, the only reason that Buford felt it necessary to make the call, my sources say, was because Buford himself received a similar call from Minnesota Timberwolves general manager Kevin McHale a few days ago, in which McHale labeled Buford and the rest of his championship ring-wielding front-office cronies "free agency chokers."


Kevin McHale had to keep up with the Kupchaks.
McHale was referring to his acquisition via four-team trade of Latrell Sprewell, and perhaps his choice of words in taunting Buford was, if not intentional, unfortunate.

So there you have it folks, Summer Time Smack Talk, middle-aged white dude style, as the powers-that-be in the NBA play their own game of oneupsmanship by wheeling and dealing in a $2 billion version of the World Series of Poker.

Who says you can't get that same adrenaline rush once you retire from playing?

Some would argue that this summer in the NBA is more entertaining than its regular season -- and not just because we get to see to what lengths Kobe Bryant will go to restore his good name. (His next three endorsement deals? Chapstick. Tiffany's. And TigerBeat Magazine.)

This reminds me of that stretch in the NFL from 1987 to 1996, when the New York Giants won the Super Bowl, forcing the rest of the NFC to make an adjustment. So the Redskins do, and win the next one. The title keeps volleying back and forth between New York, Washington, San Francisco and Dallas for 10 straight years, depending on who made the best adjustments.

Only, this whole thing is happening in one month instead of one decade, a dizzying whir of activity that makes one ready to end the offseason (also known as: COPS! See the police use a pair of platinum-plated handcuffs and an Escalade paddy wagon with three DVDs and a PlayStation 3) and begin a regular season in which 82 games will be welcomed instead of ignored -- or, at least in the Western Conference.

This all started when Kupchak did his impression of Mike Price, and Destiny and her sister Serendipity dropped in his lap. One day you're contemplating whether or not to keep Robert Horry and maybe contact Jelani McCoy, the next day Gary Payton and Karl Malone call and start asking about where the nice neighborhoods in L.A. are located.

At the time, San Antonio's and Minnesota's responses seemed meek, the Spurs stealing Rasho Nesterovic and the Wolves resorting to Michael Olowokandi. But then McHale went Postal and got Sprewell. Or is that McHale went Sprewell and got Postal? I can't keep these things straight. But it makes me contemplate the possibility of Sprewell and Malone playing together, meaning the Mailman could go Postal.

Maybe we'll get that redundancy next summer. But this summer, Buford's parry to McHale's riposte was to pull off a three-team deal with the Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings in which the Spurs got Hedo Turkoglu and Ron Mercer for, well, a rusty old mud-filled can sitting on the bottom of the Riverwalk. Excuse me, I mean, Danny Ferry. The Kings got Brad Miller. And the Pacers got Crow on a Spit because Donnie Walsh has promised his constituents for a long time that he was going to re-sign Jermaine O'Neal, Brad Miller and Reggie Miller, and now Brad Miller is gone and Jermaine has no center.

I find this move interesting for a couple reasons. Foremost is that San Antonio was so desperate to make a fantastic move to keep up with the other SeaBiscuits that the Spurs did the deal with Sacramento. This is kind of like the U.S. providing weapons to Iraq 20 years ago so that Iraq could defeat Iran. Now, 20 years later, the U.S. uses those same weapons as an excuse for invasion. (Republicans, please don't e-mail me telling me what an ass I am. I've already heard it from my father-in-law.)

You'd have to think that at some point over the next five years, the Spurs and the Kings are going to meet in the playoffs, perhaps even the Western Conference finals, and the trade that happened this week is going to go a long way toward determining the outcome of the NBA championship. At which point R.C. is going to take out his Buford Pusser whooping stick on Geoff Petrie, or Petrie might flog Buford with a satchel of poker chips from the Palms.

The other thought I had was that I find it humorously ironic that Larry Bird had a hand in undermining the strong personnel move of McHale. I mean, is there no loyalty any longer, no championship ties that bind? What was Red Auerbach teaching those fellas up there in Boston? What ever happened to Celtic Pride? I guess it disappeared when Vin Baker came to town.

Curiously and conspicuously absent in all this contractual philandering are the Dallas Mavericks, who apparently still are smarting from the rejection of their overtures to Alonzo Mourning. Remember a few years ago when Mark Cuban heard about the four-team deal that was going to send Baker to New York and Patrick Ewing to Seattle and Cuban interceded to block the whole thing by pulling off a meaningless trade with Detroit?

I miss those days of back-alley sliminess, of nefarious negotiations in which Cuban outmaneuvers his opponent only to incur the wrath of David Stern in the form of a monetary wrist-slap, which is akin to taking one of Hugh Hefner's six girlfriends away from him for a night. That's boardroom brawling at its best, and Cuban once was the King of Sports.

Now, he sits on the sidelines and watches while Kupchak, Buford, Petrie and McHale stick out their tongues and nanny nanny boo boo one another in a grand tussle for the next five championships.

C'mon, Cubes, get in the game. We know you have it in you.

[Chiwas]

I miss those days of back-alley sliminess, of nefarious negotiations in which Cuban outmaneuvers his opponent only to incur the wrath of David Stern in the form of a monetary wrist-slap, which is akin to taking one of Hugh Hefner's six girlfriends away from him for a night. That's boardroom brawling at its best, and Cuban once was the King of Sports.

What for? To fill the salary room up? To pay, what, 20 mill of luxury taxes last season?

He was the king of trading but it costed a present frozen summer. Maybe the smart guys were others.

[jayC]

Excuse me for being unimpressed the spurs still lost robinson and claxton both of who were huge in the nba finals. Is it me or is Marc Jackson the better center then nesterovic. Shaq killed nesterovic but had his problems with jackson. Hedo and Mercer while good moves why in the hell did the spurs let the kings basically have miller. And Indy what a cheap orginization you don't even keep brad miller and know are centerless and replace him with scott pollard.

Mavs fans can I safely say that as a duo our two centers are in the top five. After all you hear bradley to ny, or lafrentz to ny, before that it was lafrentz possibly to toronto. We should hold our chips until the trade deadline when a good team could be out of the race and more likely to deal. Aka Atlanta, Golden State, Houston, and Cleveland.

[mavsfanforever]

Great post Jayc.

I have to say that this off-season mavs really tried and went after right players. Only regret is that they did not have a Plan-B (ZO's case).

There was no point in making a trade just to make it. I am sure we have enough time till trade deadline to get the rebounder we need.

I feel if Najera is healthy , it solves some problems for the mavs on the rebounding.

[JoshHoward5]

I have a feeling losing all the FA's this summer . . . will not matter. If the Mavs can play with heart and determination, I will beleive in them.

[Chiwas]

What Cuban made was a team that broke all old Mavericks records and competed for others of the NBA.

Converted the Mavs in a team within the best 4 of the league.

But he expended resources to do that, and now he can't move much. Yes, he could make minor movements, but they have said that don't want to make not needed moves; he can make a big deal involving several teams, but now we know that they don't want to undo the big three.

Then, we now have to play with the same team.

Cuban did his homework the last 3 years. Now is a brake.

[Intruder]

Originally posted by: jayC
Excuse me for being unimpressed the spurs still lost robinson and claxton both of who were huge in the nba finals. Is it me or is Marc Jackson the better center then nesterovic. Shaq killed nesterovic but had his problems with jackson. Hedo and Mercer while good moves why in the hell did the spurs let the kings basically have miller. And Indy what a cheap orginization you don't even keep brad miller and know are centerless and replace him with scott pollard.

Claxton is the Spurs big loss here, but he really wanted to start and the Spurs could not give him that. As for Rasho, him and Drob had similar numbers against Shaq in the playoffs. So that is basically a wash with room for improvement, if you want to consider health and youth as "room for improvement". One thing to consider though, Rasho has problems from the FT line, so he'll blend in very well with the Spurs [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Miller does not fit the Spurs as well as Rasho does. Miller has limited skills on Defense according to the Spurs FO. Plus he hits his FT's. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img]

Intruder