Mark Cuban on Chandler Parsons signing: 'We were not trying to stick it to the Rockets'
A lot has been made in recent months of the seemingly adversarial relationship between Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey. The feud of uncertain veracity was amplified when Cuban's Mavericks pried restricted free agent Chandler Parsons away from the Rockets this offseason.
Cuban, while acknowledging a healthy competitiveness with his instate and division rivals, dismisses any notion that he targeted Parsons for that reason.
"We were not trying to stick it to the Rockets," Cuban told ESPN's Marc Stein. "We wanted Chandler."
Speaking of his relationship with Morey, Cuban felt the need to clear the air: "Is it competitive? Yes. Do I hate Daryl? No. I have a lot of respect for Daryl. Daryl's not one to hate at all. That's not his mode. He's very, very logical."
"Daryl Morey is the Spock of the NBA. I didn't originate that; someone else told me that. He's the Spock of the NBA because he's talking about logic all the time."
Stein's piece - which is well worth a read - then delves into the gritty details of the Parsons signing, offering insight into the precarious and oft-frustrating process of restricted free agency, for both team and player.
Notably, Cuban talks about the tricky balancing act of trying to chase Parsons while also being careful not to jump the gun - since the Mavericks' cap space might've been needed in the unlikely (but not impossible) event that free agents LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony showed interest.
"I told Chandler from the start [of free agency]: 'Do you want me to be brutally honest with you?'" Cuban says. "And he said yes. So I told him with as much granularity as I could that I think it's a 10 percent chance at best that we could get Melo, but we had to try. Then, we started hearing our percentage was getting higher, and I told Chandler that, too."
Meanwhile, the Rockets were playing the same game, trying to lure Anthony or Chris Bosh, and Parsons was left flapping in the breeze, unsure when or if his phone would ring.
"Dan was trying to negotiate something with [the Rockets] early, and, to be perfectly honest, I would have accepted a lot less money early in the process to stay in Houston," Parsons says. "But they told me they wanted to wait for the whole LeBron and Melo situation [to play out], which I understood."
Then Cuban got tired of waiting.
"[W]hen we weren't hearing a whole lot from the Melo camp, we knew we were pretty much out," he says. "So I told Chandler [on July 9]: 'I could end up being the dumbest idiot in NBA history, but even if LeBron comes back to us and says he's choosing us, I'm committing to you.'"
Parsons, for his part, echoed Cuban in saying he bears no ill will towards his former team, which let him walk after apparently telling him time and again that they were committed to keeping him and would match any offer sheet floated his way.
"I have nothing but respect for those guys and nothing but great memories there," says Parsons. "That was home for three years, and I'm gonna miss Houston. I did think they were gonna match, but they had to do what they thought was best for their organization, and I had to do what I thought was best for my career."
Parsons and the Mavericks play their first preseason game of 2014 against the Rockets on Tuesday night.