2004-era Mark Cuban didn’t think Steve Nash would still be walking at this point

The league churns along, people tend to forget, and rumor turns into legend turns into "fact." I'm sounding like inarticulate grandpa again, wobbling as he gives the Thanksgiving toast, but we needed to be reminded of long-ago lost context from time to time. Which is why it was nice of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to remind us of why, exactly, he declined to spend his usual Mark Cuban-money on point guard Steve Nash in 2004, prior to his back-to-back MVP seasons. Cuban, fresh off a Mavericks championship last June, doesn't need to defend anything to any critic at this point for his decision, but it does bear repeating that Cuban would have been looked upon as an absolute nutter for matching or eclipsing the Phoenix Suns' contact offer to Nash in the summer of 2004. Chalk it up to revisionist history or Mark saving his own hide seven and a half years later, but even if he is making excuses, Cuban isn't wrong. Here's his defense, from the Fort Worth ...