Cuban: Mavs Only Interested In Acquiring Another Star

The Mavericks don’t plan on making any trades before next Thursday’s deadline unless they can acquire a star player, owner Mark Cuban said recently on the Mavs Step Back Podcast (video link).

“Unless it’s a game-changing star, I don’t see us doing anything at all,” he said. “So, if someone decides they’re blowing it up, OK, we’ll talk to anybody about any great player. If it’s just ‘We’ll trade this guy for that guy’ and it’s not really going to move the needle, I’d rather go with continuity.”

Cuban added that the only other circumstances in which the Mavs would look to make a trade are if another team “makes a mistake” or offers a “great player” in a salary-dump deal.

The most significant trade the Mavs made during the offseason was sending Seth Curry to the 76ers for Josh Richardson and the rights to Tyler Bey. They also dealt Justin Jackson, a 2023-second rounder and a 2026 second-rounder to the Thunder and Delon Wright to the Pistons for James Johnson. In terms of free agency, they re-signed Willie Cauley-Stein and Trey Burke.

Cuban said those moves – which allowed the team to retain 2021 cap space – had nothing to do with hoping that Giannis Antetokounmpo or other stars would chose free agency this offseason.

“The changes we made, the trades we made weren’t about setting us up for the coming summer,” Cuban said. “Not at all. We wanted defense, we wanted toughness and that’s what we went out and got.”

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