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Cowlishaw: Mark Cuban striking out on free agents is Mavericks' July ritual

All in all, it was one heck of a week for Mark Cuban. I thought he made some nice points about Donald and Hillary on "The Megyn File" on Fox News the other night, and he wasn't awful on Bill Simmons' new HBO show.

Oh, free agency? Don't bother to ask how things went in Cuban's other interest.

Misreading the league once again, Cuban and the Mavericks kept their wallets locked up tight while the rest of the NBA spilled money everywhere Friday. The Mavs' top target, Memphis point guard Mike Conley, signed the biggest deal of the day at $153 million for five years.

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To stay in Memphis.

Then there was the Mavericks' Chandler Parsons who got the "max money" he had been seeking after opting out of the final year of his contract here. Parsons will get about $94 million over four years.

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To go to Memphis.

All of a sudden, it's all about the Grizzlies. Who saw that coming?

It's fair to say Cuban and GM Donnie Nelson didn't see much of anything coming. Cuban said not long ago that some players were going to be disappointed because of teams holding money until 2017. Maybe that's the Mavericks' Plan B, if we can even call it that after so many things went wrong on the first day of free agency.

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It began in the wee hours on Snapchat, of all places, where Hassan Whiteside -- the Mavericks'  targeted rim-protector -- announced he was staying with the Heat, roughly to the tune of $98 million over four years.

"Heatnation it is," said Whiteside.

Mavs Nation it isn't.

Nicolas Batum didn't even bother to keep a meeting he had set up with the Mavs Friday afternoon. Seen as a possible replacement for Chandler Parsons, Batum agreed to a five-year, $120 million deal to remain in Charlotte.

Then the dominos kept falling throughout the day. Before you could wonder if Dwight Howard might be a possibility after the failure to land Whiteside, the former Rockets center agreed to a three-year $70 million deal in Atlanta.

It's important to point out that not all of these teams landing free agents are winners. Some of these contracts will surely go bust. We get all excited about the big spenders in the NFL each spring, and how many times does that directly lead to a Super Bowl?

Still, the NBA is different. It's a star-driven league. You can either have a few stars and compete for titles or you can build with young players, hoping to watch them develop. The Mavericks don't do either of these things.

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Cuban fires shots at big names and misses. It's a July ritual. And this year the Mavericks didn't even bother with any real pursuit of the biggest fish, knowing that Kevin Durant has better things to do than consider playing for an owner he referred to as "a idiot" two months ago in Oklahoma City.

Time after time, Cuban has failed to land premium talent to join Dirk Nowitzki in his twilight years which, lucky for Dallas, have extended far longer than we had any reason to expect. Nowitzki is headed into his 19th season, and will still be the best player on this team barring a shocking trade or signing in the coming weeks.

And with Friday going as poorly as it did, Mavs' fans started wondering if this would make Nowitzki reconsider his plans to spend his entire career in Dallas. It's almost certain that it won't, given how steadfast Nowitzki has been in saying this is his final destination as long as the Mavericks don't embrace a total rebuild.

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We know that's not happening because this team's drafts through the years have been more disastrous than Friday's swing-and-misses in free agency. You can't rebuild without young players and before you can even mention that Rick Carlisle doesn't like to coach them, Cuban can't find them anyway.

So the start of free-agency was terrible for Dallas. How does the team regroup? An NBA management source texted me the following:

"If Mavs strike out on overpaying another free agent, they really need to explore utilizing their space to take in good players via trade. That secondary market will be an incredible value opportunity. If I was in Dallas' front office I'd be pushing like hell to find trades to take in contracts because every contract that predates today is a good contract.''

So you see? There is hope. If only Cuban and his brain trust can figure it out...

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Twitter: @TimCowlishaw