Mark Cuban vs. Mark Cuban

Hardwood Paroxysm does not condone owner on owner violence or poorly executed photoshops

You tend to forget, with Mark Cuban.

When the high-profile owner of the Dallas Mavericks finally raised his hands in triumph last June, it was easy to immerse one’s self in the picture flickering before one’s eyes. Somehow, we naturally felt joy for a person with whom empathizing is the very definition of unnatural. Unless you too are a limelight-seeking billionaire who has transferred countless matter from your pockets and your soul into a professional sports team, you shouldn’t be able to “get” what Mark Cuban was feeling.

But we got it. Because we’re fans, and Mark Cuban is a fan. He just happens to be richer than you and I. And because Cuban’s ultimate victory was so swift and so powerful, you tend to forget just what happened before the never-ending drive and the never-closing mouth manifested in overpriced-ring form.

Business vs. Basketball

You tend to forget, with Marc Cuban, but things were not always like this. Cuban entered the league with troves of business savvy, make no mistake, but they were lost in rash move after rash move, the sort of actions that are usually reserved for compulsive gamblers, not brilliant tacticians. Cuban the businessman never had a place in the world of owning a pro-basketball team – Cuban the sports fan made sure of that, placing the ultimate basketball prize several orders of magnitude ahead of further expanding his financial reach. Say what you will of the NBA’s shady lockout-induced behavior, but paying the luxury tax year after year is hardly a sound monetary model. For Cuban, having another center to give 6 fouls against Shaq or Duncan was always much more important than another green checkmark in his portfolio.

However, even in those early years, Cuban was hardly just throwing random objects towards a wall while hoping they stick. This wasn’t the New York Knicks model of stockpiling overlapping talent without caring about fit; it was about stockpiling talent so unique that an overlap was virtually impossible. Cuban’s Mavs and Isiah’s Knicks were virtually identical as far as their lavish spending and how they were guaranteed to make the trade deadline hilarious; but while Isiah’s go-to move was assured to involve a low-efficiency scorer with a large contract, Cuban made a habit out of acquiring players who play somewhere between 2 and 5 different positions and yet were too inherently flawed in doing so to succeed elsewhere. He would then plump those pieces in front of a Don Nelson that still used eccentricity to gain a competitive advantage and not just for eccentricity’s sake, sit back, and watch what happened.

It was brilliant and boorish, reckless and revolutionary. It was a fine line, and Cuban walked it in his own virtually unprecedented way.

Prodigy vs. Prodigy

In many ways, Cuban’s early years were eerily similar to those of the man his employees vanquished last June. As Cuban rode the wave of his financial strength/unconsciousness, complementing it with a mind and eye unbounded by the constraints of logic, so did LeBron James’s first NBA seasons feature a foundation heavily predicated on other-worldly athleticism dabbled with once-in-a-generation court vision.

Furthermore, just as LeBron James developed his actual basketball skills in a manner that was somehow both gradual and rapid, so did Mark Cuban learn actual basketball savvy while insisting on acting against it on every turn. LeBron’s rapid ascension in the 2007 Pistons series was Cuban’s somewhat premature, 60 win, Western Finals loss in 2003; LeBron’s 2009 Magic, a bad matchup destroying his all-capable juggernaut, were Cuban’s 2007 Warriors; LeBron’s 2010 Celtics, an underdog bullying him out of his comfort zone and into the jaws of a full-blown mental meltdown were Cuban’s 2006 Heat; and the unloyal blemish that was Mark Cuban’s “Decision” was, take your pick, frolicking in the arms of Erick Dampier as Steve Nash walked away or amnestying Michael Finley, sans the PR catastrophe. No, this does not fit chronologically, but the concepts are the same.

Creativity vs. Creativity

As LeBron evolved as a player, so did Cuban evolve as an owner. Creativity is a virtue, but it can go both ways; driving a unicycle of a cliff while wearing a Popeye Jones jersey and juggling 17 swordfish is just as creative as pulling off a 5 team trade for Dwight Howard, but only one of them keeps you alive – and it is by far the least entertaining of the two.

Using the same logic, I will always believe the most fascinating Mavs season of all time was 2003-2004. With a Nash-Finley-Dirk engulfed in Nellieness going far but not quite far enough, the Mavs somehow brought in both Antoine Walker and Antawn Jamison. It was Cuban at his finest: lord knows Walker had his warts as a player, most of them lying between his two ears, but at his best he was one of the NBA’s most versatile players, an inside-outside sort of specimen that was derailed only by his utter refusal to strike an intelligent balance between those two components. Conversely, Jamison built an entire career from the seemingly contradictory balance of rugged determination accompanied by ballet-like skill, twistedly flip-shotting the ball towards the rim with soft palms while muscling his way towards rebounds despite facing up against larger specimens.

Bring the two together, throw them into the insane mix that was already, and you get early-Cuban incarnate: a team that is as impossible to coach as it is to defend, because somehow, all parts are capable of doing everything and accomplishing nothing. We ultimately saw more of the latter, with a Kings squad that was desperately trying to cling to greatness bouncing the Mavs out of the playoffs, followed by both Toine/Tawns being traded for yet another classic Cubanism: a combo-guard extraordinaire of Jason Terry in his prime and a rookie Devin Harris. (Also, Jerry Stackhouse and Alan Henderson, but that’s not what we’re trying to convey here).

Unique vs. Ordinary

As time went by, the sharp edges of Cuban’s basketball moves were smoothed out. Not from erosion, but from refinement: trading Harris for an aging Jason Kidd was the very definition of traditional NBA risk-making, a win-now move in a win-now world; Nelson’s systemless system of insanity was replaced by Avery Johnson and, later, Rick Carlisle, far steadier hands than the NBA’s winningest head honcho; and the yearly irrational contract for a limited center is the NBA, as DeAndre Jordan will be happy to tell you. Cuban was still creative, but he was creative in a manner that owners and GMs past have already approved.

And while the Mavs squad that eventually brought Cuban to victory was lauded for it’s unconventionality, it was probably the most normal Cuban squad ever. Tyson Chandler is a defensive center who sets picks and dunks on offense, a classic center if there is one – no more Raef LaFrentz shooting threes or dudes name DeSagana. Kidd is the distributive point guard of an older generation, and Terry’s offensive game is, at this point, 100% shooting guard. The two of them switching match-ups on defense may feel different,  but I’d place that on the viewer’s perception more than an actually different mind-set. Barea is your classic change-of-pace guard. Shawn Marion is, at this point, a small-forward, and so that’s how he was used. Brian Cardinal is such a typical end-of-rotation motivation/hustle/awkward-balding-white-guy that might as well be part of a cliché sports film that nobody actually likes but somehow makes it big in the box office. Even Cuban himself decided to play the typical behind-the-scenes owner role instead of the hyperactive, juiced up version of years past.

In an era of the positional revolution, Dallas may have been presented as a study case, but it was unique only as far as its superstar. Dirk was as much as an oddity as ever, and it altered one’s perception of the rest of the team. Rob Mahoney called the Mavs title team a singular occurrence, and yet John Hollinger said they looked like a typical contender, and you know what? Both of them are right. Those Mavs did look like every other contender, because they were built around a supporting cast tailored to the strengths of their superstar, but that superstar was the kind of superstar that comes along once in a universe’s existence.

Realization vs. Realization

Of course, going half-conventional is one half more conventional than the typical Cuban. It seems as if, at some point, the ultimate goal of winning a title became much more important for Cuban than winning a title his own different way, a choice that none of us can or should criticize. However, it shouldn’t surprise us that once conventionality did indeed bring Cuban his long-awaited ring, it was chucked out the window.

Lamar Odom, who was brought in from Los Angeles in a baffling manner, will replace Chandler, in a move that might as well be taken straight from that legendary 2003 offseason. Odom is so similar to the Walker/Jamison moves that we might as well give him the honorary, awkwardly spelled name of Antuon. Standing at 6’10″, he handles the ball, makes threes, rebounds, is a fantastic defender, and has played everywhere from point forward to center on two NBA title teams and one World Champion US squad. It’s a move so Nellie that, when it was announced, somewhere in Hawaii, another Johnnie Walker blue was ordered by a guy who swears Monta Ellis still isn’t playing enough minutes.

Throw in Delonte West, a 1-2 hybrid who was arguably the second best player on a conference finalist, signing a perhaps-washed-up-perhaps-sporadically-capable-perhaps-even-still-good Vince Carter, trading for Rudy Fernandez only to trade him away again, and the return of Roddy Beaubois, also known as “crazy young Jason Terry on steroids without the airplane bit”. Suddenly, this is once again a team that can throw any 5 player combination and make sense, as long as it includes Nowitzki.

It’s very possible that Cuban is just trying to be as smart as possible, and that this has nothing to do with a return to his wacky roots. After all, these moves fit in perfectly with the ideal of preserving 2012 cap space and general flexibility (only Nowitzki, Marion and Brendan Haywood are under contract past this season, with the latter a prime candidate for amnestying should it be needed), Carter and West could be easily defended as savvy signings without the pre-existing context, and none of us in our right minds would refuse an Odom-for-nothing trade, especially if it dramatically weakens an archrival.

That said, there is nothing less typical than the complete dismantling of a reigning NBA champion, whether it comes in the name of flexibility or in the name of idiotism. The post-title Mavs are riding a wave of prudent insanity, a mixture of the knowledge obtained by the new, experienced Mark Cuban, and the passion and drive of the old, naïve version.

You tend to forget, with Mark Cuban, just how fun that older version was. Now that he has realized the goal that brought him into the game, he is free to realize the means that represent his philosophy. It promises to be just as entertaining.

Oster-Tags: Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban, Nellie Lives