Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban Feels Chris Paul Trade Would’ve Hurt Small Market Teams

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is one of my favorite NBA team owners. However, his recent moves are seriously putting his status into question. Not only was Cuban one of the owners who voted AGAINST the new CBA agreement, he’s also one of the ones that had a beef with the trade that would’ve sent Chris Paul to the Lakers and Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol to the Hornets and Rockets respectively.

“The message is we went through this lockout for a reason,” Cuban said Friday on ESPN Dallas 103.3 FM’s Ben and Skin Show. “Again, I’m not speaking for Stern. He’s not telling me his thought process. I’m just telling you my perspective, having gone through all this. There’s a reason that we went through this lockout, and one of the reasons is to give small-market teams the ability to keep their stars and the ability to compete.”

“We just had a lockout, and one of the goals of the lockout was to say that small-market teams now have a chance to keep their players, and the rules were designed to give them that opportunity,” Cuban said. “So to all of a sudden have a league-owned team trade their best player, particularly after having gone out and sold a ton of tickets in that market, that’s not the kind of signal you want to send.

The problem that wasn’t solved in the lockout, the beef between small market teams and large market ones. This reeks of jealousy. If you look at what the Hornets were receiving; Odom from the Lakers, Luis Scola, Kevin Martin and one other player from the Rockets, they actually were getting the better end of the deal and pieces that would’ve made that team competitive. This is all about $$. This is about attracting a new owner and wanting a marquee player on the team as a draw. Which in a way, won’t matter because CP3 is out of there after these 66 games regardless and it’s about making the small markets feel they can compete. What I wonder is what sort of business analysis did these teams do before they purchased their franchises.

The NBA has a public mes on their hands. They can’t blame this one on the players though.