On the loss of free agent Chandler Parsons:
Cuban: “I’m still good friends with Chandler. We talked about it after he signed with Memphis. We exchanged texts and stayed friends and committed to stay friends. I like him a lot but there were other things other than basketball that went into the decision. And Chandler was aware of them and he made his decision. We gave him some options and he went in a different direction. That was his choice and I respect it and again, I think he’s a great guy and I hope he has a great season other than the four games we play him.”
On what it was the Mavericks saw in Seth Curry:
Cuban: “He’s an instant-offense guy. He’s been in situations where only at the end of last season did he really get a chance to start and get minutes and when he got those minutes he did really well. He can shoot, obviously. He can create his own shot, quick release. He’s a knock-down 3-point shooter and we thought that was something we needed.”
On what he expects the identity of the Mavericks to be this season:
Cuban: “I think we’re going to be a lot more athletic than we were last year. And then from there, Rick (Carlisle) is going to play to our strengths. When guys got hurt at the end of the season we were a grind-it-out team and won eight out of our last 10 and won some really big, important games to get into the playoffs. Rick leveraged our skill set of the guys who were healthy. Going into this year we’ll be a much better defensive team just because of the athleticism we’ve added, just because we’ve added (Andrew) Bogut, who’s a great anchor and play caller if you will on the defensive end. And then if you look at our second unit that’ll probably be our biggest question mark.
We’ll have J.J. (Barea) and Devin (Harris) and Seth coming off the bench most likely unless Coach decides to start one of those four for whatever reason. But most likely coming off the bench to give us a scoring punch and Jonathan Gibson, who’s an instant-offense type guy. And then athletes around them. I’d say you’ll see us go to the boards more often and kind of be a go-get-the-ball-type second unit. I leave that to Rick. We put together the youth that we think we need to develop and we put together the athleticism going forward and we’ll see what happens.”
Courtesy: sportsday.dallasnews.com
