Given that early-season injuries to superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook might cause the OKC Thunder to miss the NBA Playoffs in the brutal Western Conference, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wondered aloud if the team shouldn’t reverse course, and consider joining the “race to the bottom”.
Cuban, naturally, insisted that he wasn’t suggesting the Thunder pull a tank job. He’s simply curious.
Please never change, Cubes.
Per the Dallas Morning News:
“The question I don’t think anybody’s asked is why they don’t try to pull a David Robinson and try to get Tim Duncan?” Cuban said.
“I don’t know; it would be a tough call,” he said. “When Dirk [Nowitzki in 2012-13] got hurt, we didn’t. But it’s a little different, because I had a lot of one-year guys, and we had to see who we wanted to keep. And I never thought he [Nowitzki] would be out that long. Honestly. I thought he’d be back at the start of the season. … It kept dragging on. […] He never would have sat out the whole year. So I’m glad we did it the way we did because I like the fact I’ve never had a losing season.”
Asked if a Thunder dive for the lottery would go against the integrity of the NBA, he said: “We already specialize in a race to the bottom. More participants won’t change anything.”
