As the Dallas Mavericks prepare for a chance to win their sixth straight in Charlotte tonight, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban seems to more worried about the future of the NBA as a whole, at least from a draft perspective.
Cuban spoke with the Boston Herald on Monday, showing opposition to Boston Celtics' assistant general manager and Harvard graduate Mike Zarren's proposed plan to "fix" the draft.
Zarren's "wheel" system, which is now under consideration in the NBA commissioner's office, would have each team draft in all 30 predetermined draft spots over a 30-year span, in an order which purports to balance mathematical fairness with the elimination of perceived "tanking" by teams attempting to land prized prospects.
The Dallas Mavericks' owner isn't so sure that this system is a cure-all, and in his interview with the Herald on Monday, went so far as to decry it for possible inherent flaws--
"...if you’re in the wrong spot in your life cycle and all of a sudden when you don’t need the draft pick you get the draft pick, and then when you need it you’re 30 years away, that’s tough. Yeah, you can plan for it, but the law of unintended consequences could mean that teams just don’t ever have a shot for a long time.”
The Dallas Mavericks' last lottery pick of major note was current Brooklyn Nets head coach and future NBA Hall of Famer Jason Kidd back in the 1994 NBA Draft, six years before owner Mark Cuban purchased a majority stake in the franchise.