Mark Cuban is among the handful of owners across all sports who interact with fans and openly communicate with them on social media. The Mavericks executive always faces the music and doesn’t shy away from admitting his faults.
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During an interview with Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart on the Roommates Show, Mark fielded questions from fans, among which one fan asked him what his biggest achievement and failure in his 24 years as the team’s decision-maker-in-chief.
The Mavericks’ owner pointed to the Larry O’Brien Trophy sitting on a shelf in his office as his greatest achievement. He then thought about his failures momentarily and admitted that it was letting Steve Nash walk away.
“Probably not re-signing Steve Nash… Nashy was one that I screwed up really bad… So I was in a little bunker suite at the American Airlines Center when (Nash) called me back and we had set a number where we weren’t going to pay more, like idiots. He called me back and he said, ‘This is the number,’ and I wrote down on this pad that’s still on my desk to this day, ‘Mike Bibby Money.'”
Mike Bibby had signed a seven-year, $80.9 million contract extension with the Sacramento Kings in 2002, and Nash demanded a similar offer from the Mavs. However, Mark was concerned about the guard’s long-term durability due to his smaller stature. He refused to offer ‘Mike Bibby Money’ and Nash left the team in the 2004 offseason.
Nash’s exit haunts Mavs’ owner to this day
The guard signed a five-year, $65.6 million deal with the Suns and instantly blossomed into a superstar. Steve won the MVP award in his first two seasons with the Phoenix and became the fourth player in NBA history after Larry Bird, Mark Price, and Reggie Miller to join the 50-40-90 club.
Steve led the Suns to the Western Conference Finals in the 2005 and 2006 playoffs and was a perennial All-Star. He missed only 33 regular season games in his first seven years in Phoenix, disproving Cuban’s theory that he’d become injury-prone in short order.
In an OSDB Exclusive interview last year, Mark expressed that though it’s been so many years since the Nash resigning incident, he can never forget about it.
“… It’s been almost 20 years now and I still regret it.”
Steve never won the NBA title and missed many games in the final three years of his career. However, he was the most efficient guard in the league in his prime. He and Dirk Nowitzki could’ve led the Mavericks to multiple titles had Cuban not let prejudice blind him. Letting Nash leave is a gaffe, Mark has never been able to live down.
