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Mark Cuban has admitted why the Mavericks completely whiffed on letting Jalen Brunson walk to the Knicks. “It was really, really simple. We didn’t see JB, as what he would become,” Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks from 2000 to 2023, said in a recent appearance on “House of Haymaker.” Brunson spent four years with the Mavericks, averaging more than 15 points per game only in his final year, the 2021-22 season.
![“He showed that star potential when Luka [Doncic] got …](https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/gcdn/content-pipeline-sports-images/sports2/nba/players/1121277.png?format=png8&auto=webp&quality=85,75&width=140)
The Stein Line has also been advised that former Trail Blazers, Bucks and Hawks coach Terry Stotts — who previously had a stint in Dallas as an assistant and was once recommended strongly for Kidd's staff by former majority owner Mark Cuban — is also certain to get an interview for the position.
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.”
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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."
Pat McAffee: "The only Mark Cuban guy left on the Mavericks is Kyrie Irving.. There's multiple contenders around the NBA that are very much monitoring what happens with Kyrie Irving in Dallas" ~ @ShamsCharania
However, the organization is now moving in a new direction under president Masai Ujiri. "As we evaluate the future of our basketball program, we believe this is the right moment for a new direction for our team," the president said in a statement, as per ESPN. Current minority owner of the Mavericks, Mark Cuban, sent an email to share his thoughts on the news. "Obviously I'm a jkidd fan. So I'm surprised and disappointed," he wrote. "But we have to give masai a chance to see what happens. He has been through this before." He noted that Ujiri has been through these situations before. This reaction shows that even the team owner recognizes that a major reset is underway.
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Kidd has insisted that he wasn't aware of the deal until "the 11th hour," doubling down on that explanation in early April after minority owner Mark Cuban appeared on a podcast and accused Kidd of being directly involved in the decision to trade Doncic. Kidd's frustration with Doncic's frequent conditioning issues was well known throughout the organization.
Chandler Parsons: I wanted to go back and then Mark Cuban offered me the three-year deal in Dallas. And they get like three days or whatever to match through contract if you're a restricted free agent versus an unrestricted free agent. And they didn't did it. They didn't match it. So, like it is bittersweet because like I never wanted to leave Houston. I love Houston. I loved playing for Kevin McCale. I loved playing with James and Dwight.
Mark Cuban would buy back the Mavericks if he could, but he can’t. Instead, he’s invested in the Brampton Honey Badgers of the Canadian Elite Basketball League. The size of the stake and how much he paid were not disclosed. Cuban, who still owns a stake of roughly 27% in the Mavericks, tells Front Office Sports via email that Canada is a “powerhouse” when it comes to producing top basketball talent. He says there’s “huge appetite for sports and basketball” in Canada. “I think there is a ton of upside,” he tells FOS. While much of the discussion about global basketball has centered around the rise in European stars like Luka Dončić and Giannis Antetokounmpo, Cuban says “Canada is producing more stars than any other country.”
Cuban’s deal to buy into the Honey Badgers doesn’t come out of nowhere. Al Whitley, CEO of the Honey Badgers, previously worked for the Mavericks, including in front office roles, for nearly 22 years. Whitley was hired by Cuban, who says he has also “done business” with the majority owner of the Honey Badgers, Leonard Asper, “for a long time.” One example of that came in 2019, when Cuban sold a majority stake in HDNet LLC, parent of U.S. TV networks AXS TV and HDNet Movies, to Asper’s media company Anthem Sports & Entertainment. Cuban remained an equity partner in the business as part of that deal.