Howard noted that Mark once celebrated the Dallas Mavericks‘ NBA trophy with a $90K bottle of champagne, so Mark laughed that it tasted great–he bought it for several reasons: “Because I can. … [and] I had to. We had just won the NBA Championship!” Conversely, Mark said he’d overpaid for Raef LaFrentz: “I think we gave him a $45 million contract, and as soon as we realized it was a mistake, we traded him.”
Mark said he wouldn’t listen to any offers for the Mavs under $1 billion: “I wouldn’t sell it for less than that, [but] if a 3rd party were evaluating it, they’d probably say $600-700 million.” He’s intimately involved with the team’s GM: “Right now, the trade deadline’s coming up tomorrow, so we’ll talk all day today and tomorrow.” Because it pays to be: “With the new NBA rules, if you spend stupid, you can’t fix your mistakes. … You can’t just spend more to fix your problem.”
