I think Cuban's pissed that we went after Dirk in free agency, however unsuccessful it was. We've been pretty good, and I think he's doing a smart thing to take on a rival. He should want to beat up on San Antonio, too, but it's hard to paint the Spurs that way. So he's directed his bully pulpit onto us. Our owner stays above the fray, so I'm outgunned honestly. But let's be clear: If the money's equal between the Rockets and Mavericks, I think players are picking Houston. Every time. For Dwight, I just don't think it was a hard choice between us and Dallas. If you want to win, you're going to want to join our organization. We have a first-team All-NBA player in his prime. They have an enormously talented superstar but he obviously isn't 24 years old. The choice was pretty obvious between the two teams. Dwight is the smart guy in this.
Our teams have had great chemistry, and it's something we believe in. Hey, if Mark believed so much in chemistry, he wouldn't have busted up a title team for cap room. He's trying to reunite a lot of those people now, bringing back the center from that title team. Maybe he's got some chemistry religion recently. He's tripled his an*lytics staff. If he's equating an*lytics with not caring about chemistry, well, he's tripling down on it. I think he's smart to paint a competitor in a negative light, but none of those statements are lining up. He says that we're the team that you sign with and then we will trade you, when that's what he said he would've done with Dwight. We don't care about chemistry, but he busted up a championship team for what he hoped cap room could do.
He has a ring. I don't. We're no different than other teams. We have a core of two players – Dwight Howard and James Harden – who we are going to build around and never trade. San Antonio has had three core guys who they've done an unbelievable job of building around, making a lot of changes around that core. We had Tracy McGrady and Yao and we made changes around them. And Mark's had a core of one, who was there since before he bought the team. We're fighting for the hearts and minds of free agents.