The jaw-dropping Luka Doncic trade cemented the reality, if it wasn’t already clear, that Mark Cuban has no influence on the Mavericks’ basketball operations.
The former majority owner of the franchise, who still has a minority stake after selling 73 percent to the Adelson family, “urged” Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison to not trade the 25-year-old All-NBA guard for Anthony Davis, Marc Stein reported Sunday in his “The Stein Line” Substack newsletter.
But at that point, the deal had already been verbally agreed to, the report said.
As shocked as the NBA world was by the trade, perhaps no one was more taken aback than Cuban, who, according to Stein, used to privately tell Doncic he wanted the Slovenian superstar to match Dirk Nowitzki’s league record of 21 seasons with one franchise.
So Cuban apparently didn’t share the concerns about Doncic’s commitment and conditioning that Harrison and new Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont — Miriam Adelson’s son-in-law — did as a decision loomed about whether to give Doncic a five-year, $345 million supermax contract extension this summer.
Cuban had been mum on the trade until a Friday night appearance with Bill Gates, who was promoting his book “Source Code” in the Dallas area.
“If after you left Microsoft you found out that Steve Ballmer traded Windows 11, like the new hot operating system, for Windows 10, the Hall-of-Fame but older operating system, what would you do?” Cuban asked, as the crowd laughed and applauded, as shown in a video posted by The Dallas Morning News.
“I might have to hide from the press,” Gates answered.
“I know a couple of other people that are in that situation,” Cuban responded.
Harrison, the target of scorn from the Mavericks fan base, has publicly explained that he believes the trade for Davis puts the team in better position to compete for a championship in the short-term with his defensive ability; Davis suffered an adductor injury in his Mavs debut Saturday and will be out several weeks.
Dumont broke his silence Sunday in an eye-opening interview with the Morning News in which he did not shy away from his concerns about Doncic.
“In my mind the way teams win is by focus, by having the right character, by having the right culture, and having the right dedication to work as hard as possible to create a championship-winning outcome,” Dumont told the paper regarding what he wants in players. “And if you’re not doing that, you’re going to lose.”
“If you look at the greats in the league, the people you and I grew up with — [Michael] Jordan, [Larry] Bird, Kobe [Bryant], Shaq [O’Neal] — they worked really hard, every day, with a singular focus to win,” he said. “And if you don’t have that, it doesn’t work. And if you don’t have that, you shouldn’t be part of the Dallas Mavericks.
“That’s who we want. I’m unwavering on this. The entire organization knows this. This is how I operate outside of basketball. This is the only way to be competitive and win. If you want to take a vacation, don’t do it with us.”
When told people will assume he doesn’t think Doncic had those qualities, Dumont replied, “Look, I think there’s a lot of things that come into play when you decide the roster of the team. And culture is very important. That’s what we’re focused on.”
When Cuban first sold the majority stake in the Mavs in December 2023, he indicated he’d remain in control of basketball operations.
As it turns out, that couldn’t be further from the truth.
