Mavericks' Cuban on Matthews injury: 'What do you do, run away from risk?'

The track record of players returning to form coming off of an Achilles tear is unsightly, and while sport science continues to advance rapidly, paying $57 million without seeing how a player has bounced back is risky. Bumping that salary to $70 million after losing out on an accompanying star is an even larger gambit.

That's what the Dallas Mavericks did this offseason, inking Wesley Matthews for $70 million over four seasons. Matthews, previously one of the league's most sturdy ironmen, tore his Achilles in early March, but betting on the player, and the team's medical staff, is something owner Mark Cuban deemed necessary.

Cuban tried to justify betting on the 28-year-old Matthews making a full recovery on Wednesday, when speaking with Zach Lowe of Grantland:

I invest in more medical science companies that I can list. It's just a different world right now from when Chauncey (Billups) or Penny (Hardaway) or those guys went through it. But look back to Dominique Wilkins, he did it.

What do you, run away from risk going forward?

The Mavericks didn't have many avenues to improve after DeAndre Jordan left them in a lurch, so risk was a necessary part of their offseason. By all accounts, Matthews is an incredibly hard worker, having played his way from undrafted free agent to max-contract player in six years, making him the type of player you want to bet on if you have to roll the dice.

Were Dallas in a less competitive conference, Cuban may not have deemed the risk worthy of the potential reward.

"If we were in the East, we'd be a perennial top-three team," Cuban said. "We wouldn't have to do much, just add pieces around Dirk (Nowitzki)."

Swinging for upside has been a common Mavericks theme of late as they try to build one more championship contender around Nowitzki. Last season, they moved several assets for the mercurial Rajon Rondo in an experiment that failed quickly and famously.

"Rajon just wasn't a fit," Cuban said. "Everybody went back and forth 100 times, in the end it really came down to a coin flip than anything else."

That's the unfortunate reality of playing in the Western Conference, where even one superstar and a few strong supporting pieces may not be enough to get a team into the playoffs. Ceiling rules above all else, and the Mavericks are comfortable navigating through uncertainty to improve their high-percentile outcomes.

Matthews may not make it all the way back to his form of the last five seasons, in which he's averaged 15.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists, and 1.2 steals while shooting 39.4 percent from outside, but it's a risk Dallas had to take.