The Dallas Mavericks have had their fair share of superstars, although Mark Cuban thinks the team could have landed two All-Stars.
Between Dirk Nowitzki, Luka Doncic, and Cooper Flagg, the Dallas Mavericks have had their fair share of high-end talent.
However, they aren't the best drafting team. In recent years, while picking in the lottery, the Mavericks selected players like Dennis Smith and Cason Wallace, who was traded on draft night for Dereck Lively II.
During his tenure as majority owner of the team, Mark Cuban called the shots. Unlike owner/executives like James Dolan and Jerry Jones, Cuban was able to find reliable success, usually on the back of Nowitzki or Doncic.
However, even Cuban can admit that he dropped the ball.
Mark Cuban Reveals Two Regrets
In the 2013 NBA Draft, the Dallas Mavericks selected Kelly Olynyk 13th overall. He's gone on to have a solid career, but he never played in Dallas, as the Mavs traded him for Lucas Nogueira.
Nogueira also never played a single game for Dallas.
Olynyk was an All-American at Gonzaga, so no one can really fault Dallas for picking him. However, two picks later, the Milwaukee Bucks would land Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the best players of his generation.
Given Cuban's willingness to give lesser-known European players the keys to the franchise, drafting Antekoumpo would have made sense, but it remains one of his bigger regrets.
"Tyrese Maxey was a big miss for us recently, you know, Greek Freak was probably the biggest," said Cuban on the Adam Friedland Show.
Instead of taking Maxey, the Mavericks picked Josh Green 18th overall in 2020. Green was coming out of Arizona, but with Kentucky's history of producing elite NBA guards (John Wall, De'Aaron Fox, Jamal Murray, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Immanuel Quickley, and Rajon Rondo), taking the former Wildcat would have probably been a safe move.
Of course, no one could have predicted that Maxey would become a multi-time All-Star or that Giannis would become perhaps even a better player than Dirk all-time, so living in the past isn't very useful. However, if Dallas could have paired Giannis with Luka or built a backcourt around Doncic, Maxey, and Jalen Brunson as a Sixth Man, it's safe to say that they would be in the playoff picture right now.