In what's quickly become one of the season's most noteworthy sound bites, Cuban jokingly mentioned an outlandish solution to the Lakers' bloated budget.
According to Tim McMahon of ESPN, Cuban was on ESPN Dallas' Ben and Skin Show when he said, "If you look at their payroll, even if Dwight (Howard) comes back, you’ve got to ask the question: Should they amnesty Kobe?"
The Dallas Mavericks owner has since explained that he was merely using Bryant as an example to illustrate his point. McMahon later reported Cuban's follow-up comments:
I was clear saying it was hypothetical and I didn't expect it to be that way, but it was a good example because they have the highest payroll and the highest-paid player in the league. That's the end of the story.
The clarification came after Bryant himself posted the tweet of the year, a barb that came hot on the heels of a 38-point performance in a huge win over Cuban's very own Mavs.
The entire exchange, from Cuban's original statement to his clarification, is a glaring example of a quotation being taken completely out of context and blown up into a story that simply doesn't reflect the facts of what happened.
Objectively, it was obvious that Cuban was speaking hypothetically. And even if that part of his point was cloudy, he made it totally obvious that he wasn't actually suggesting the Lakers amnesty Bryant by later saying that he'd never do the same thing to Dirk Nowitzki.
But what if there's something to his overall point that even the richest NBA teams need to consider cost-cutting measures?
Think about it; the current dollar-for-dollar luxury tax for teams over the $70 million dollar mark is already hurtin...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Los Angeles Lakers
