Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been fined $600,000 for defaming comments about his team’s season, the NBA announced Wednesday afternoon.
Cuban stated on Julius “Dr. J” Erving’s podcast that the best option for the Mavericks is to “lose as much as possible” for the rest of the season. Dallas (18-40) is on track to finish worse than last season (33-49), and although Cuban’s statements are the logical move for the Mavericks, making those statements public are not well-received by commissioner Adam Silver. Cuban’s tanking comments originated last season, when he admitted to NBC’s Dan Patrick that the team “did everything possible to lose games.”
This fine isn’t the only cloud hovering over the Mavs’ organization right now. They are currently in the midst of a heated sexual harassment controversy that continues to develop each day.
From the full report on Sports Illustrated, former Mavericks employees describe the work atmosphere as a “real-life animal house”, detailing years of sexual harassment within the organization. Longtime executive Terdema Ussery was the main culprit of these allegations. Ussery was a well-respected executive in the league, which is why many employees were scared to say anything about the harassing, because they believed he would not be fired. Ussery had been the CEO/President of the Mavs from 1997-2015.
Mark Cuban allegedly had “no idea” of these issues and that the Mavericks “don’t tolerate and take these situations very seriously.” This, however, is contrary to statements Cuban made to Ian Thomsen in his book The Soul of Basketball, stating: “The big difference is, being that I’m so close to everything that’s going around, you can’t bulls*** me.”
Since winning the 2011 NBA Championship, the Mavericks have made it back to the postseason four of six seasons, but were bounced in the first round all four times.
