Earlier this week, Steve Nash officially announced his retirement from the NBA, and since then, he's received an outpour of well-wishes from past bosses (owners), coaches, and teammates. Amongst those has been Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who called Nash's career "amazing" while speaking to the Dallas Morning News. Nash spent six seasons in Dallas and averaged 16.0 PPG and 7.9 APG during his time there. As a free agent in 2004, the Mavs let him walk to their conference rivals, the Phoenix Suns, a move which Cuban admits was a mistake.
"It was at a time when we had the better team and lost four out of five to Sacramento in the first round," Cuban said. "If I knew then what I know now, it would probably be different. All I knew was that I was being told we were going to have to cut [Nash's] minutes. Whoops."
Before the interview ended, however, Cuban named his "worst personnel" decision ever:
"By the way, Cuban said letting Nash go was not the worst personnel decision of his ownership.
That would be Lamar Odom, he said."
In 2012, coming off of the NBA lockout, he shipped over a first round pick to the Lakers in exchange for Odom. In Dallas, Odom dealt with drug problems and saw his very public marriage to Khloe Kardashian spiral out of control. He was was completely miserable as a teammate and employee—his former Mavs teammates voted him out of their playoff earnings from that season, and he fought with Cuban shortly before being cut.
Odom averaged 6.6 PPG in 50 games as a Mav. Cuban didn't expand on why Odom was the "worst"—the first round pick eventually turned into Mitch McGary (eh), but the headaches and drama Odom caused the Mavs that season certainly did a number on Cuban.
Having Steve Nash run the point during those mid-2000s peak Dirk years would've been nice though.
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[via ProBasketballTalk]
