Q&A: Mark Cuban

Courtesy of KTCK-AM 1310

On his feelings and excitement about the Mavericks’ offseason so far:

Cuban: “Yeah it’s been fun so far. I try never to get too excited, but I’m always excited. Getting Chandler, getting the Chandler brothers is going to be a big step forward for us. I think we’ve gotten younger, I think we’ve got a team that is very flexible; we’ll be able to do a lot of different things. We’ve got a high basketball IQ. I’m really excited about it."

On adding six players this offseason who were starters for other teams last year:

Cuban: “I didn’t even think about it that way, but that’s probable true. We were looking to improve. We were looking to add depth. ... The thing about the NBA is that it’s becoming much smarter. There’s a lot more analytics. The new owners that have come in since I’ve been here are just really smart guys. So rather than always doing it the old-school way, the way it’s always been done, teams have to be a lot smarter and the league evolves a lot more quickly. And I think one of the reasons we were able to give San Antonio such a run is that we had a high basketball IQ and we were able to make adjustments that they didn’t expect. I think if our basketball IQ was a little bit higher, then we should have beat them — we could have beat them, we would have beat them — and that’s what we were looking for this summer: guys with high basketball IQs, guys who can play multiple positions, guys who were unselfish and were willing to move the ball and guys who could hit an open shot. And so we think having a lot of flexibility, being able to switch on defense, moving the ball a lot, we think by adding all these starters from all these other teams, we added guys who had those capabilities and I think hopefully it will take us to the next level.”

On giving coach Rick Carlisle many more options:

Cuban: “Yeah, no question about it. Richard Jefferson, Tyson, Chandler Parsons — Raymond Felton we think is going to have a bounce-back year, Jameer Nelson. I mean it’s crazy that we’ve gotten guys who were cornerstone s not only on the court but in the locker room for a lot of different teams, and I think that’s going to make a huge difference for coach.”