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Mark Cuban, who sold the Mavericks at a $3.5 billion valuation, has maintained that he had a handshake agreement to remain in charge of the Mavericks’ basketball decisions after the sale. That didn’t happen. Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont instead leaned on general manager and president of basketball operations Nico Harrison to run the Mavericks’ front office until he fired Harrison nearly a year ago. In May, Dumont hired Masai Ujiri as Dallas’ chief basketball decision-maker. Cuban has said he regrets selling control of the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families, but he still regularly attends home games. He sat in his usual spot along the baseline for Saturday’s home opener.
Mark Cuban said he learned some “hard lessons” from how things played out after he decided to sell his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families in 2023. In an appearance on the “Build or Break” podcast released Tuesday, Cuban told host Daniel Lubetzky: “I’m a really trusting partner. If I shake your hand, I mean it. So, yeah, that was a first for me.”
Similarly, whatever you think of Cuban’s stewardship of the Mavericks during his tenure, we can all agree he would not have green-lit the trade of Luka Doncic to the Lakers as Patrick Dumont did. It took a Cooper Flagg lottery mulligan to begin to stanch the civic bleed that occurred among Mavericks fans after Dončiċ’s departure. I will never not believe that the team’s new owners simply decided they weren’t going to pay Dončić the $350 million extension for which he was eligible and, thus, were quite amenable when told by then-general manager Nico Harrison that he wanted to move on from the young star.
The Stein Line has learned that there were two more recent unannounced alterations to the front office structure: I’m told vice president of strategy and analytics Andrew Baker and director of pro player personnel Makhtar Ndiaye parted ways with the franchise earlier this month. Both were hired by Nico Harrison and then worked for co-interim GMs Matt Riccardi and Michael Finley after Harrison's dismissal last November.
SI noted that it saw people online saying Dallas and Nico Harrison “fumbled the two of you,” which prompted a smile from Brunson. “Well,” Brunson said with a pause. “They made decisions and I’ll leave it at that. They made their decisions.”
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Shams Charania: "Think back to the last eight months. Patrick Dumont, the Mavericks owner, you let go of Nico Harrison and then bring in Masai Ujiri to run this organization, fire Jason Kidd within weeks after bringing in Masai Ujiri. Throughout the onset of the process, it was John Scheyer and Dusty May as the top two targets for the Dallas Mavericks. That's who they really zoned in on. A group of assistants were interviewed as well, but they landed on Dusty May. A lot of executives around the NBA believe that Dusty May has been destined to make the jump. He was motivated, he wanted to do it, and that's what comes through these opportunities. You need both sides, the coach and the team, ready to make this jump."
Mark Cuban on the Luka Doncic trade: "I talked to Patrick (Dumont) about it, you could just tell that Nico just shit on Luka. because some of the stuff that Patrick was telling me was not true. “Yeah. And kudos to (Michael Finley) for really trying to stand up and block it.”
Mark Cuban: “I mean, like, me going to Patrick: ‘Okay, Patrick, what’s going on?’ “He’s going to give you a report, right? Every two weeks, you get a report, and you sit down. Then, ‘Oh, yeah, I want you to talk more with Nico. Get down there with Nico.’ “And then, obviously, Nico is talking trash behind the scenes. But again, we’re winning. I don’t want to create a problem when things are going well. “And if we had been losing, I probably would have stepped forward and said, ‘Look, this is not working the way it is right now. Here’s what we need to do.’ “But I didn’t want to screw it up.”
Interviewer: “So, when you say ‘talking trash behind the scenes,’ like politically maneuvering? Going to maybe Patrick and saying, ‘Hey, I’m the guy doing this, not Mark’?” Mark Cuban: “Absolutely.” Interviewer: “What is he doing to you? What is he saying? How do you find out about—” Mark Cuban: “Like, ‘Oh, I did the Kyrie deal. He didn’t do the Kyrie deal.’ “Right. Yeah, he might have talked to the general manager, but I’m the one that made the decision. I talked to the agent. I talked to the other players. I was there to meet him, right?"
Mark Cuban: "Masai and Nico are a lot alike, but they're different in the important ways. Nico wanted all his people in there, and you saw how many people he got rid of and who he got rid of. Masai's a lot of the same way. But Nico didn't really know what he was doing. I hired him to work for me, right, not to run the the the basketball operations."
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Jake Fischer: I’m told Mavericks executive Matt Riccardi is also departing the organization. Riccardi, who served as Dallas’ co-general manager this season in the wake of Nico Harrison’s exit, was the runner-up to Masai Ujiri in Patrick Dumont’s process to find a new president of basketball operations.
Sources said that Kidd had expressed a desire to be promoted to president of basketball operations after general manager Nico Harrison was fired in November, but Dumont informed Kidd months ago that he wouldn't be considered for the front office. Kidd was kept out of the loop in the process that resulted in Ujiri's hiring, sources said.
Marc Stein: It was announced earlier today that Matt Riccardi, Dallas' co-interim GM alongside Michael Finley since Nico Harrison's November ouster, will represent the Mavericks in Sunday's lottery in the off-camera drawing room in Chicago ... as planned before Masai Ujiri's hiring. Just reconfirmed for @DLLS_Sports that is still the case: Mavericks legend Rolando Blackman will be on stage and Riccardi will be off stage ... reprising their same roles from the Cooper Flagg lottery last May.