NBA dishes out huge punishment to Mark Cuban for comments 'detrimental to the NBA'
Mark Cuban’s savviness as a businessman made him a billionaire, but his mouth just cost him $600,000.
That was the fine handed out by the NBA after Cuban admitted to tanking in a recent podcast. The Mavericks owner was on Julius Erving’s “House Call with Dr. J” podcast when he openly spoke about telling his team that losing was the best option for the franchise.
“I’m probably not supposed to say this,” Cuban said, “but, like, I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are, you know, we weren’t competing for the playoffs. I was like, ‘Look, losing is our best option.’
“[Commissioner] Adam [Silver] would hate hearing that, but I at least sat down and I explained it to them. And I explained what our plans were going to be this summer, that we’re not going to tank again. This was, like, a year and a half tanking, and that was too brutal for me. But being transparent, I think that’s the key to being kind of a players’ owner and having stability.”
Cuban might consider himself a players’ owner, but the NBA called his comments detrimental to the league and slapped him with the third-biggest fine in NBA history.
The largest fine was $3.5 million against the Timberwolves in 2000 after they tried to circumvent the salary cap to sign a free agent. The second-largest was $2.5 million vs. former Clippers owner Donald Sterling for making racist comments.
Cuban has now been fined at least 20 times for a total of $2.24 million during his 18 years as Mavs owner. That’s still pocket change to someone who is worth an estimated $3.3 billion.
At least some good will come out of the fine as Cuban has said that every time he is fined, he donates the same amount to a charity.
“I earned it,” he told the Associated Press when asked about the latest fine. “I got excited talking to Dr. J and said something I shouldn’t have.”
Cuban likely didn’t even have to admit that his team was tanking as the team’s payroll indicates the Mavericks aren’t trying to win. Despite playing in the fifth-largest TV market, and having the second-longest home game sellout streak in NBA history, the Mavs rank dead last in payroll.
The Warriors’ Big 4 alone ($93.9 million) are making more money than Cuban’s entire team ($85.7 million). NBA teams are allowed to go over the salary cap to re-sign their own players, but Dallas is one of just seven teams that chose not to do that and has a payroll under the salary cap. Unsurprisingly, six of those seven teams are not in playoff contention.
Dallas will enter the second-half of the season with an 18-40 record, which is third-worst in the NBA. The last time the Mavs had a winning percentage as low as they do now was in the 1997-98 season. The poor record that year then led to them using their high draft pick the following season to trade for a German rookie named Dirk Nowitzki.
This is the last season that the Mavs or any other team will be able to tank and still reap the benefits. Starting with the 2019 NBA draft, the three teams with the worst records will each have a 14 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the draft lottery. Currently the team with the worst record has a 25 percent of landing the top pick.
Unfortunately for Cuban and the Mavs, this wasn’t even the worst news they received Wednesday.
A Sports Illustrated investigation revealed a hostile work environment within the Mavs organization with reports of sexual harassment and domestic violence.
No $600,000 fine is going to make that go away anytime soon, nor should it.
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