"I got out of the way": Mark Cuban speaks about how he let Dirk Nowitzki "be Dirk Nowitzki"

Mark Cuban has found a ton of success during his years owning the Dallas Mavericks. Of course, the biggest highlight during his tenure as owner was when the team won an NBA championship in 2011. That achievement was made possible because of the amazing skills of Dirk Nowitzki, the German Hall of Famer who transformed the team from wannabes to champions.

Speaking to Lex Fridman, Cuban talked about how he unlocked all of Nowitzki's potential by just standing back and letting the superstar do what came naturally to him.  

“I had this big tall guy named Dirk Nowitzki and I let him be Dirk Nowitzki… and I got out of the way," Cuban said.

You can't blame Cuban for stepping back and letting Nowitzki dominate. During his 21 years in the NBA, he averaged 20.7 points and 7.5 rebounds and shot 47.1% from the field.

The Mavericks struck gold when they got Nowitzki and they knew it. He quickly became the most important player for the team and ultimately earned 14 All-Star appearances, Finals MVP, and the 2006-07 MVP too.

Cuban also spoke about how he changed the inner working of the Mavericks, doing whatever it took to help the team reach its potential.

"I think more than anything else there was the turnaround on the business side, and then there was the turnaround the basketball side. On the basketball side I just went in there immediately, I said whatever it takes to win that’s what we’re going to do. Back then they had three or four coaches that were responsible for everything and I was like ‘Okay we spend more money training people on PC software than we do developing the most important assets of the business’, so I made the decision to go out there and hire like 15 different development coaches, one for each player, and everybody thought I was just insane."

Cuban explained what those changes did for the morale of the team and the people working for it.

"But it sent the message that we were going to do whatever it took to win. Once the guys believe that you know winning was the goal as opposed to just making money, attitudes changed, effort went up and you know the rest is history.”

Cuban has been a very hands-on owner since buying the team but when it came to Nowitzki, he decided that he was going to be hands-off and let the legendary player do whatever he wanted.