The MAVS not re-signing Tyson Chandler & JJ Barea (and Caron Butler) the last offseason, played a huge part in them being short-handed in defending their crown ...... they basically lost their defensive anchor and lost their best change-of-pace guy.
However, to be fair to Mark Cuban ...... re-signing Chandler & Barea would mean over-paying them - thus leaving the MAVS without much cap flexibility for the next few years, that comes with being on the wrong side of oppressive luxury tax bracket.
Also, Cuban did had a decent contingency/replacement plan in Lamar Odom ...... since Odom just came off a fantastic 2010-2011 season being named the top 6th man.
Of course, nobody foresaw Odom acting and playing like a lost child for the MAVS ..... should Odom have played his usual self last season, I'm sure that the MAVS would have gotten a more favorable seeding and would have fared much better during the playoffs.
==============================================================================
Mark Cuban's gamble on Odom failed ...... but it was a decent gamble at the time - who wouldn't want to have the reigning 6th man of the year on their squad?
His gamble on creating cap-space for Deron Williams also failed ...... but many other teams would have wanted to be in their solid position of landing Williams right?
Besides, it's cap space that wont go anywhere and can still be used for the 2013 batch of top free-agents ..... they now the flexibility to hire 1-2 (maybe a 3rd upper-tier player) top players after this upcoming season e.g. Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, Andrew Bynum, etc.