Did Mark Cuban spark the Shaq/Marion deal?

What got the ball rolling in the Shaq-for-Matrix deal? The Miami Herald’s Dan LeBatard reported on Sunday that the trade originated from a conversation between Mark Cuban and Miami owner Micky Arison. Ten days ago, Cuban asked Arison whether the Heat would buy O’Neal out of the remaining $100 million on his contract, and if so, the Mavs would be interested.

”I talked to Micky, but we didn’t talk specifics,” Cuban writes to LeBatard. “I just told him that if he ever did buy out Shaq, we would be interested. It never got past that. If they weren’t going to buy Shaq out, nothing was going to happen with us.”

The Heat weren’t about to oblige Cuban’s buyout request. But Arison, who supposedly has great affection for the Diesel, looked to quietly shop his aging star to other contenders. That’s when he called the Suns owner Robert Sarver.

“Kerr and Riley took it from there,” writes LeBatard. “But it was the owners who handed it down. [Kerr] is in his first year as an executive, and he just pulled off one of the most curious trades you will ever see. He might not have had the courage to do it if the nudge didn’t come from above him in the food chain — triggered first by one billionaire in Dallas calling another in South Florida.”