TThe year 2000 popped like a glow stick, flooding Dallas with new money – and a new owner of the Mavericks, who made his money by selling his streaming site shortly before the dot-com crash. Like the Mavs of the 1990s, Mark Cuban wasn't polished—and he certainly wasn't subtle. He was brash and argumentative, clashing with referees and clapping too hard whenever Dirk Nowitzki hit a three. Cuban's Internet era collapsed when he bought the team for $285 million. Gone is the era when remote owners occasionally watched games from executive boxes: the fan was now in control of the team. Cuban hacked reality.
Cuban's thesis was simple: never play by their rules. The Mavs were his startup. He improved the food service, upgraded the hotels for away games, bought a team jet, stocked PlayStation lockers and fought NBA lawyers with the defiance of a rapper cheering for hundreds of people at a strip club. It went against the NBA's old boys club. For all his dot-com contributions, Cuban was a punk in practice.
His first cases? Signing the 38-year-old Dennis Rodman, of course. Being a trickster, Cuban understood the spectacle. In those early years, we strived to make the Mavs culturally relevant. The team made the playoffs in its first full year under Kubin. He was what has become commonplace among sports owners in the new millennium: a tech billionaire.
A quarter of a century later, the glow has dimmed. Cuban sold his majority stake for $3.5 billion to a woman who was less a dreamer and more a ruthless businesswoman: Miriam Adelson. Since then, as a minority owner, he has done little with the team's day-to-day operations and has been sidelined by the general manager he once hired, Nico Harrison.
Without the Mavericks taking over, Cuban went on a media tour. He defended everything from the grandmaster, who now locks in the shots he once made. HarrisonTo Clippers owner Steve Ballmer Disputes about “no-show” for work. The only thing he doesn't seem to want to talk about is Luka Doncic deala move that still haunts most Mavericks fans to this day. Cuban seems unmoored and clings to the NBA spotlight like a man afraid the lights will go out. As the owner of the Mavs, significance was automatic – his language and courage did the trick. Meanwhile, his former team is off to a dismal start under the dim-witted supervision of a new owner and his former general manager. The Mavericks are at the bottom of the NBA standings, and calls to “Fire Nico” have increased again. Many fans believe that Cuban is responsible for drafting Harrison and selling the team to the bad guys.
Cuban turned a $285 million bet on the Mavericks into $3.5 billion. But how will this windfall be reflected in the history books? Will this be the sign of a visionary or just another fortune sucked out of American sports? To judge Kubanin's tenure, sometimes the simplest paradigms are the most revealing.
Good
The time that Cuban hopes will define him, and that will live on as long as the American Airlines Center has a roof, is 2011. Dirk's run was the one that shook the Heatles' dynasty in Miami before it even began. The name is finally. This banner is proof that his mania can turn into a championship.
But championships don't happen in a vacuum. Cuban may have fired general manager Donnie Nelson after the Mavs lost the 2006 NBA Finals. But he knew Nelson's eye for foreign talent had already brought Nowitzki – and one day it would bring Doncic, too. Nelson's dream created an international channel that others envied and ripped off of. However, Cuban handled both players and executives skillfully and looked out for them when they needed it most. Delonte West was only a top player for one season, but Cuban repeatedly tried to help him get off drugs and get back on his feet. Sad, Cuban couldn't save West. West was also unable to save himself.
At the zenith of the Cuban Mavericks' reign, there was a rare sense of balance. He hired great coaches: Don Nelson brought the zest for life, Avery Johnson brought the defense, and Dirk brought the post game. Rick Carlisle brought the tactical flair that helped win the title. Jason Kidd used a Doncic-inspired finals run in 2024. Carlisle, in particular, was everything the Cuban was not – quiet and methodical. Together they created the environment Dirk needed to become a championship myth.
More than any other roster move, however, Cuban brought basketball relevance to Dallas. Since the 2000–01 season, they have reached the playoffs in 15 of 16 seasons. Their slogan MFFLwas not corporate branding, but an identity created in South Dallas and Oak Cliff. The Mavs of the 1990s were terrible. The fact that the Cuban pulled them out of the gutter and turned them into championship contenders is a huge credit to him.
Bad
But Cuban's greatness also led to his own demise. The same gambling instinct that made him a billionaire made him look like a slap in the face a couple of times. Letting Steve Nash go in 2004 was the first big sin. Cuban didn't want to pay an aging point guard with a bad back. Phoenix did just that, and Nash became a two-time MVP who reinvented basketball with Mike D'Antoni on the Suns. Dallas received nothing in return but regret.
It happened again with Jalen Brunson in 2022. The homegrown guard, Doncic's natural backcourt partner, was humiliated and released. The Knicks attacked and Brunson has become a star Dallas desperately needed this. Another decade, same Cuban mistake.
The hiring of Harrison, a top Nike executive, as general manager in 2021 sounded radical in press releases, but it did not bring real success in the front office. Harrison made some smart moves, signing Kyrie Irving and Derek Lively, but also ousted Cuban once he sold his majority stake. The championship drought of the Doncic era bears Harrison's fingerprints. The Slovenian superstar's departure made Harrison persona non grata in Dallas – the ultimate sales move. middle finger to the city and fans.
Then there were problems with Cuban freedom of agency. Tyson Chandler, the heart of the 2011 team's quarterback, walked out the door because Cuban wanted cap flexibility. Michael Finley, the first captain of the Cuban Mavericks, was released under an amnesty and won a ring with San Antonio. Kristaps Porzingis was supposed to be Doncic's vice-president candidate; instead, he suffered a loss of salary, including injuries, costing Dallas two first-round picks. And the gem of a misfire: leaving Nowitzki to spend his twilight years surrounded by entropy and a one-year lease, all because Cuban was chasing free agents who never signed.
Ugly
Cuban had a tendency to waste draft picks due to foreign arrests, coupled with a lack of black players. There is no suggestion that this was due to prejudice on Cuban's part, but it often seemed strange in a league where more than two-thirds of the players are black.
Cuban's last act was to sell a majority stake to Adelson, heir to casino billions and sharp politician. The difference is clear: Cuban was a dedicated fan who lived and died with every win and loss, who cared about the Mavs as much as he cared about the people in the cheap seats. Adelson, by contrast, seems to value political influence over basketball. The Mavs are just another part of an empire that includes the Las Vegas Sands casino business, the Adelson family's charitable foundation and a close relationship with Donald Trump. In the case of Mavs some see Adelson's investment in the team is a stepping stone towards legalizing gambling in Texas. Of all the people Cuban could have sold the team to, why did he have to give the money to someone who many fans believe he is? real supervillain?
Then there is the decline that occurred during Cuban's time as a majority owner. In 2018 Sports Illustrated report blew up the illusion of Cuban as a benevolent destroyer. The Mavericks' front office was allegedly a quagmire of harassment and misconduct. Cuban denied knowledge of any wrongdoing but acknowledged some responsibility. “I'm honestly embarrassed that this happened on my property and it needs to be fixed. Period. End of story.” he said at the time.
There were other problems too. Donnie Nelson sues the teamaccusing Cuban of retaliation after he reported allegations of sexual harassment by a Mavericks executive. Bob Voulgaris, the Cuban player who was pulled from his Twitter feed, turned into a shadow general manager, angering Doncic and collapsing the team from within. Being a Mav, Chandler Parsons, played recruiter in ways that blurred the line between player and executive, pushing Cuban into failed contracts. But nothing will outweigh selling the team to Adelson. In the end, Cuban's basketball rebellion ended with a handshake with the establishment class he once ridiculed and vowed to overthrow.
