Mark Cuban's second full year as the Mavericks' owner brought a stint working at Dairy Queen, another whopping fine from the NBA, another major trade, and the same finish as last season, a second-round elimination. Cuban sat down with The Morning News to reflect on the past season and predict what is in store in the future.

Q: What are your overall thoughts on the season?

A: We made progress. The Question is, what can you do to get to a championship-caliber team? We had to upgrade the past couple years, and I think we've done that. Now, what I think we need to do is just give this team some time to be together. I think we overused our guys. We really focused on protecting ourselves in terms of making the playoffs. We'll go into this season much more confident. It won't be about whether we can make the playoffs. It won't even be about whether we're No. 1 or winning the Midwest. It will be about what can we do to make sure we're in the best possible shape for the playoffs. Because that hurt us this year. We're going through a transitional phase. The trade helped us get to that point where I'm a lot more confident.