Q&A with MARK CUBAN by EDDIE SEFKO / The Dallas Morning News
How do you feel about this season?
We made some mistakes, but we'll learn from them. I'm ecstatic about where this team is. With the way that Avery and Del [Harris] have dealt with the team and getting to this point with only 30 games to get Avery's system in, I think it's great.
So the makeup of this team is to your liking?
I love this team. I think it's got a great foundation, and I'm proud of the way they fought through a lot of adversity this season. I love the pieces we have. We got guys like Stack [Jerry Stackhouse] and Fin [Michael Finley], Damp [Erick Dampier] and Shawn [Bradley] who are older. And then we have the next generation with Dirk [Nowitzki] and Josh Howard and Marquis [Daniels] and Devin [Harris].
For fans and media members who believe that losing Steve Nash for nothing was a mistake, what would you say?
When Steve left for more money, I thought, "Oh my goodness," because we made a mistake by not lottery-protecting the [2005] pick we traded to Utah for Pavel [Podkolzin].
So you thought there was a chance this team could finish in the lottery?
Yeah. And to get from that point to here, I'm so proud of this season. All I can say is congratulations to Steve and that I'd do it exactly the same way if we had it to do over again. You can't look back now and say, "Boy, we screwed up." What people are missing is that, if we decided to keep Steve, we wouldn't have had the same team.
We don't make the Antoine Walker trade. We don't get Dampier. We'd have a completely different team. We'd have Dirk starting at center, which he hates. And we'd have Walk as our [power forward]. I like this team better. We had six years to try it the other way. I'd do it all over in a heartbeat.
So there was no circumstance that you could have seen for keeping Nash last summer?
If I could have gotten Amare Stoudemire, too? Yes, I would have kept Steve. But they weren't offering Amare.
For people who use Nash's season and the Suns' win in the second round of the playoffs as a yardstick for how that deal turned out, what would you say?
They're idiots. What we've done in 30 games is unbelievable. The way we played in the past worked in the regular season. Now, we have Avery, who has a system that we not only can believe in but get players who can fit in to. I'm excited about next year.
I told my wife back when we were down 2-0 in the Houston series that, even if it goes to hell, I love this team. There's nobody who quits on this team.
What would you have done differently in the last season?
I wish I would have talked to Nellie [Don Nelson] earlier and made the coaching change, because he wasn't into it.
Are you more comfortable with this team under Avery Johnson than you were with it under Nelson?
Avery is a system coach. Nellie was a matchup coach. I thought the team got better while adjusting to a whole new style. I feel 1,000 percent better than I did a year ago.
You've said you love this team. Does that mean the roster is set for next year?
I think maybe we tweak it a little. We have a big center in Damp who can go against players like Shaq and Yao [Ming]. Now, we need to add an athletic center that can go against Amare Stoudemire and Andrei Kirilenko and those kind of guys.
I knew after last year that we had to make changes. Now? No, no, no, no. I trust Avery, and when we have a full training camp and season under him, I can't wait for next season.