Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said that Oklahoma City Thunder should consider tanking this season by sitting out injured superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook for the majority of the season.
Cuban said that he won't find it illegal should the Thunder decide to tank, saying that several teams in the league are already in a race to the bottom to get a high draft pick in 2015.
"We already specialize in a race to the bottom," Cuban said via ESPN. "More participants won't change anything. They're all high-profile participants."
The Mavericks owner added that the Thunder could imitate the way the San Antonio Spurs managed to get Tim Duncan after the 1996-97 NBA season.
"The question I don't think anybody has asked is, why don't they pull a David Robinson and try to get Tim Duncan?" Cuban added.
The Spurs played their then-superstar David Robinson in just six games after sustaining foot and back injury. As a result, the Spurs just won 20 games that season and managed to get the right to draft Duncan, which led to multiple titles since that year.
According to Cuban, sitting out Durant and Westbrook for the majority of the season would give the Thunder a chance to pick a marquee player in the 2015 NBA Draft, who could solidify their title chances in the next several years.
When asked about Cuban's suggestion, Thunder coach Scott Brook said that he and their executives won't do such thing, promising that his players will give their all every game despite the injury bug that hit their team this season.
"We've got a good group of guys in here," Brooks said. "It's fun going into games knowing we're going to play with great effort, that we're going to be throwing our bodies all over the floor, that we'll be diving on the floor for loose, and that's what our fans want to see. They understand we've had a lot of injuries, they know it, but they like what the guys are going."
The Thunder lost in four of their first five games this season, but they bounced back from three straight defeats with an impressive 101-93 victory against the Sacramento Kings at Chesapeake Energy Arena on Sunday night in Oklahoma City.
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