Mark Cuban loves to talk, especially for wider distribution. This is not a fault. (I'm a writer who publishes like a half-million words a year, for heaven's sake; pot and kettle and all that.) But it is a fact. You put a recording device or a camera in front of Cuban and ask him for his opinion about something, you're going to get opinions.
So, it's little surprise that the Mavericks franchisee expounded on one of his opinions before his team was eliminated in Oklahoma City on Monday night. He mentioned that the Thunder have just one superstar -- Kevin Durant -- which elicited a follow-up. What about Russell Westbrook?
Mark Cuban says Kevin Durant is the Thunder's only superstar. What about Russell Westbrook? "He's an All-Star but not a superstar."
— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 25, 2016
Subjective definitions like that of "superstar" are open to interpretation. Westbrook will find himself (at least) on the second team All-NBA team for the fifth time in six years this season, which means that he will have been considered one of the top 10 players in the NBA for every year this decade that he wasn't injured. There are 450 NBA players, roughly. Being in the top 10 puts you in the 98th percentile. That's not a superstar? Alright, explain what is a superstar, Mark.
The answer, via The Oklahoman's Erik Horne:
When you look at Dirk - I'm not going to talk about other team's players other than what I just said - Dirk for 15 years won 50 games no matter what. We put Moe, Larry and Curly next to him and he won 50 games ... Russell's certainly an All-Star, but I consider Durant a superstar. You look at Dirk all those years to now, he carries teams to 50 wins. To me, that's (what makes a superstar) ... when you by yourself ... it wasn't until we got (Jason Kidd) that we had another Hall of Famer. So, to go the 15 years where Dirk won 50, that's a superstar. There's only a few guys that you put them on any team and they'll win 50 games. To me that's the definition of a superstar.
Dirk is indeed a superstar, one of the five best players of his generation (with Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Shaq and Kevin Garnett). But Cuban's explanation of what makes Dirk a superstar is completely ahistoric! To wit:
* Nowitzki's Mavericks have won 50 games 12 times, not 15. And Dallas has won 50 games just once in the past five years since winning the 2011 championship. (That's even the case if you adjust the lockout-shortened season win total upward.) Before the recent victory downswing into the mid-40s, Dirk won 50 games 11 times.
* Kidd arrived in 2007-08, and was there for the final four 50-win seasons leading up to the title. Not Kidd or any other Hall of Famer was there to help Dirk in 2015-16 when Dallas won 50. So if Cuban is arguing that winning 50 games "by yourself" is what makes a superstar, Dirk did that eight times (counting last season). Except ...
* The first four 50-win seasons of Dirk's career also featured a fellow named Steve Nash, who is an obvious first-ballot Hall of Famer and a guy with twice as many league MVPs as Dirk. So, we're now down to four seasons in which Dirk won 50 games without a Hall of Famer next to him, which is still mighty impressive.
But you see how far we've gone, from Dirk winning 50 games no matter what for 15 years with Moe, Larry and Curly, to Dirk winning 50 games with a Hall of Fame point guard in eight seasons and without a marquee co-star four times? If you're trying to denigrate another team's star by touting your own team's legend, you should at least get the basic facts of your case straight.