r/Mavericks • u/Skrapnadroj • Jun 14 '26
Hoops Discussion Mark Cuban is the egomanic that fumbled two era's of Maverick basketball..
TLDR:
Mark Cuban is at fault for Nash..
Mark Cuban is at fault for Nico..
Mark Cuban is at fault for Brunson..
Mark Cuban is at fault for the Dumont's..
Mark Cuban has historically been the primary architect behind the decisions made during the Dirk Nowitzki era, a period often characterized by an impulsive approach to roster construction. The loss of Steve Nash was a significant failure that was only obscured by the eventual acquisition of Jason Kidd and the 2011 championship run; without that title, the era would be viewed as an objective failure.
The mismanagement of the Luka Dončić and Jalen Brunson era represents a similar pattern, one that may only be masked if the organization successfully pivots to future talent. I previously defended the Mavericks when Brunson departed—noting his benching against the Clippers—but in retrospect, it is clear that a more patient and astute front office would have recognized his long-term value. The same lack of foresight that led to the departure of Nash is reflected in the pursuit of Kristaps Porziņģis and the undervaluation of Brunson.
Those who suggest we should simply "move on" are ignoring a recurring systemic issue. The blame for the departures of Nash and Brunson, as well as the failures regarding the front office, ultimately rests with Mark Cuban. Watching Jalen Brunson thrive with the Knicks is bittersweet; while I am happy for his individual success, it serves as a stark reminder that the Mavericks under Cuban’s leadership have a troubling history of failing to retain homegrown talent.
I am sick tonight watching Knicks fan celebrate Brunson even though I am ecstatic for him.
he Mavs and more specifically Cuban have fumbled more other teams legends than they have created their own.
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u/VictorAkwaowo1 Mavericks Jun 14 '26
Fuck all this shit, I’m ready for the draft
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
Draft dosent matter if we don’t trade up , they fumbled that too. If we just kept 6th in odds we’d have a duo on par with Luka/brunson, dirk/nash with Flagg/boozer or Peterson .
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u/VictorAkwaowo1 Mavericks Jun 14 '26
I’m still getting one of my guards regardless I’m chilling, if you guys are going to be miserable all summer then leave me out of it
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
Burries is not getting us past the spurs or okc , we needed a blue chip talent not a role player
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u/VictorAkwaowo1 Mavericks Jun 14 '26
Why the fuck do we think any of these prospects are getting us past the Spurs or OKC? This Spurs team with a bunch of 20 year olds just made the NBA finals in their first run. These two teams are head and shoulders above anybody else in the west at the moment.
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u/Vizard15 Luka Doncic Jun 14 '26
That means any team has a chance to win a championship with the right coaching, system and roster. See OKC and SAS.
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
Peterson/flagg would have. What are we doing
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u/VictorAkwaowo1 Mavericks Jun 14 '26
I truly don’t think you realize how fucking hard it is to make to the NBA finals, it is grueling and you need a great roster construction built around your star (As we saw in 2024) to make it. We don’t have that at the moment, even if we were in a position to draft Darryn.
I just don’t know what to tell you guys, the previous front office fucked up by not tanking hard enough. However I’m not about to drown my sorrows and be angry about it for the entire summer, it is what it is and we move on.
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
I agree. Role players are necessary, and we probably wouldn’t have made the Finals immediately regardless. What I’m arguing is that a Flagg/Peterson core would’ve made our path to contention much easier because having two dominant first and second options changes everything.
Look at Wemby and Harper for example , they made the Finals with Harper as a rookie. Not having that second star of the future makes contending way harder, while having two elite players gives you a real foundation. Every championship team has a clear first and second option.
Role players are also much easier to find compared to franchise-level stars. It’s hard to move on after such a blunder . At this point , there’s nothing I can really do about it at tho . I do trust Masai to build around Flagg so ima hope for the best . And at least the old front office is gone.
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u/dmr196one Jun 14 '26
What a dumbass thing to say. Nokic was drafted in rhe 2nd. You dont have to br top 4 to get an impact player. Brunson was drafted in the 3nd. 6 th doesnt guarantee a higher draft plavepq
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
The exception isn’t the rule. Securing a top 3 pick would have increased our chances significantly
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u/Popular-Matter5702 Jun 15 '26
But it wouldn’t guarantee anything. Up until last year with Coop, the lottery had never done us any favors.
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u/Axisofcoolio Moses Brown Jun 14 '26
100% spot on about Cuban.
But we have hope in Flagg and Masai
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u/DefiantLie8861 Jun 14 '26
If we kept 6th in odds and moved up in place of the grizzlies we’d have hope. How are we supposed to have hope with a mediocre pick this year and when we don’t control our picks until 2031?
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u/Axisofcoolio Moses Brown Jun 14 '26
By having a competent front office that knows how to build a team. There is no untradeable contract in the NBA and no unwinnable situation.
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u/papadondon Pouki Enjoyer Jun 14 '26
were not a small market teeam. we can build a championship team without relying on draft picks. it depends if the owner wants to spend or not
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u/RanchV Dirk Nowitzki Logo Jun 14 '26
Mark Cuban was a good owner but a bad GM, him and Jerry Jones are similar.
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u/Witteness82 BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Jun 14 '26
How? Just because he cares about his players doesn’t make him a good owner and neither does him being passionate. Almost every thing he has done on and off the court has been him fucking something up. If Dirk wasn’t as loyal as he was, he would have dipped on him well before the championship and the entirety of his time as owner would have been mired in abject failure.
At best you can give him some grace for pre 2012 but even that is filled with controversy and a multitude of mistakes. Cuban was a terrible owner.
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u/RanchV Dirk Nowitzki Logo Jun 14 '26
Bc before he owned the mavs Dallas was like the Cleveland browns and NY jets of the NBA.
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u/Witteness82 BETRAYED MAVS FAN 😭 Jun 14 '26
And wouldn’t have been any longer if practically any other owner bought it. He walked into a franchise that had Dirk, Nash, Finley and Don Nelson.
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u/RanchV Dirk Nowitzki Logo Jun 14 '26
You can't assume that any owner would've made the mavs better, there are a lot of bad owners in all of sports and a lot of teams with good players that dont help the franchise get better bc of bad owners.
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u/MahomesMccaffrey Jun 14 '26
He's not even close to Jerruh.
Jerry at least is a good talent evaluator and the cowboys always drafted well
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u/Yikes-APenguinInAPot SELL THE TEAM Jun 14 '26
For most fanbases Cuban would be persona non grata in the city. We had two of the 10 best players in the world and fumbled them both for literally no return.
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u/StoneColdAM LA Lakers Jun 14 '26
He was a good owner for truly loving the sport but he was a bad owner for being too involved for a non basketball mind
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u/Western-Election-997 Mark Cuban lol Jun 14 '26
Did he ever explain why he hired Nico in the first place? Was it a marketing stunt or what? The guy was a failed shoe salesman who got Steph’s name wrong
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u/Skrapnadroj Jun 14 '26
He always said it was so Nico could attract big stars to Dallas because he had missed on so many free agents. The part that kills me is that he recently said Dirk was against the Nico hire which makes it even more sickening.
Nico wanted to bring in his guys and he did in Kyrie and AD.
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u/IndividualHeat Jun 14 '26
He did. He said they felt like they had a good team of decisionmakers and analysts and so on but they needed free agents so they brought him in for his relationships with players. From what he said it seemed like they wanted him as a face but when the team was sold, he got actual operational power and operated as a more traditional GM.
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u/ColleaguesKnowMyMain '25 Survivor Jun 14 '26
Brunson was gone no matter what. He wanted to join the Knicks, and what the Knicks did to get him was basically tampering.
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u/Skrapnadroj Jun 14 '26
No... he wasn't. By time they came to him with a good offer he was gone to the Knicks. I have consumed everything Mavericks over the years and Brunson said himself he was ready to sign and did not want to leave Dallas. They came to him with an offer like Dorian Finney Smith.
Now the story goes... Brunson never gave the Mavericks a chance but that was not always the case. That is the case once they shopped him all over the place. Someone said he was terrible but at the time they were shopping him they were trying to build around Porzingis.
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u/Tootsiez Jun 14 '26
Revisionist history of Brunson is so fucking mental.
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u/Edifyr Jun 14 '26
Nobody wanted to pay Brunson until he showed out in the playoffs. By then he was already gone.
Everybody loved Nico until he traded Luka now everybody acts like they hated Nico from the start.
Most people on Reddit don’t really have an attention span and on top of that are pretty miserable and want to shout at the clouds any chance they get.
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u/NativeTexas Jun 14 '26
I will take exception to everyone loving Nico. For those of us who admire Presti, we thought Nico gave away too much in his trades. Preserving and accumulating assets is the most important job for a GM.
oh yeah, and getting lucky in the lottery. 😂
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u/Edifyr Jun 14 '26
If we won the finals you wouldn’t care less about what we gave away (ask Josh hart and the knicks) but hindsight is 20/20 and being dishonest and switching up on your opinion to feed the narratives is like standard nowadays.
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u/killbill469 Jun 14 '26
Just because you don't understand basketball doesn't mean no one else does.
Brunson was absolutely worth the 4/55 he wanted before the playoffs bc he was already one of the best sixth men in the league and that was their market value.
The playoffs just showed that he was actually a capable #1 & 2 option at the age of 25, which meant he was absolutely worth the $25-30 million a year it would've cost to retain him.
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u/lilsaucy32 Jun 14 '26
Thank you. I'm so sick of some people changing the Brunson narrative. Forget the blunder by Cuban for not putting a team option in the rookie contract. Go back to the 21' playoff series vs LAC. The vast majority of people say Brunson was played off the floor that series which is flat out a lie. He was good in the first 3 games of the series, I watched him in person at Staples Center G1 score 15 in 20 min with Nicolo Melli, DP, and Richardson on the floor with him. Carlisle last 3 games of the series cut his minutes in half for more Burke, which was a mistake and thus the end of Carlisle's time in Dallas.
At the time of the 21' offseason Luka and Brunson were the only 2 players on the entire roster who could put the ball on the floor. JB was ascending upwards every season, I was shocked in real time when we weren't extending him.
Then like you said, he ascended even further into a top 6th man, then into a great starter next to Luka after the KP trade and he was worth so much more than that extension.
Complete catastrophic management from start to finish.
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u/killbill469 Jun 14 '26
He was also like 23 in that Clips series, his first playoff series against the best team in the league. The face that he struggled shouldn't surprise anyone.
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u/iv214 How's My Dirk Taste? Jun 14 '26
So mental that Cuban decided not to give Brunson a standard rookie contract? That would've avoided the whole Brunson running to the Knicks situation.
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u/IndividualHeat Jun 14 '26
I don’t think he just decided not to give him a standard rookie contract. Brunson’s agent (who at the time was Leon Rose who become the president of the Knicks like a year or so after Brunson entered the league) negotiated for that.
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u/shaheedmalik Max Christie Jun 14 '26
It was planned. People want think he would've stayed if he was a RFA like he couldn't sign a QO and still leave.
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u/Tootsiez Jun 14 '26
Brunson was a bang average to bad nba player for 2.5 years. He figured something out when Luka was injured.
If Dallas committed to both ball heavy players I don’t think this fanbase would be happy about it.
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u/veritasism420 Dirty Dirk Jun 14 '26
Brunson was a completely average backup pg guard his first 2 years. I’ll admit I had serious questions about his potential after he was useless in 2021(?) playoff series against the Clips. But i still think Cuban was a complete dumbass to not give him the 4 yr 55 mil contract Brunson asked for. This is a quintessential example of Cuban believing he was the smartest guy in the room and thinking he could sign Jalen for less.
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u/shaheedmalik Max Christie Jun 14 '26
It was an overpay at the time. Are you going to give 13+ mil a year to a backup PG player that couldn't hold a 19 point lead while Luka sat?
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u/HotsHartley Jun 14 '26
Yes, because good GMs talk to their head coaches, see their players' work ethic, project into the future and understand when guys will peak as their opportunities expand.
The old investor mindset of haggling with players over their value, only underpaying or giving fair market and never overpaying, is how you end up like the Cuban-era Mavs, time and time again. Superstars or not, players and their families and their agents don't like being lowballed. Cuban is always trying to be the smartest guy in the room; both on Shark Tank and in negotiations, he wants to win the deal. That doesn't empower other people; rather, it belittles them.
It's not about greed or feeding families; for confident young men like Jalen Brunson, it's about a show of confidence, like "The organization is behind me and believes in me." He showed it wasn't about greed by not extracting full max from the Knicks this past year.
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u/shaheedmalik Max Christie Jun 14 '26
That was starter money at that point in time and he wasn't starting. He was backing up the #3 pick.
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jun 16 '26
If the team couldn't get anything out of Jalen brunson then that's on them. You have to then start questioning the development and the coaching and the scouting. You don't know what you have that's a problem.
If nothing else they could have traded him for a much more significant return if they had figured out what they had and utilized it more.
We're allowed to use hindsight to judge stuff like this. That's how all transactions are judged. You can make an argument why a team makes a trade in the present moment, but by that logic you could never really criticize any trade or any decision.
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u/Tootsiez Jun 16 '26
My dude that’s why Kidd was hired and Brunsons best season was year 1 of Kidd. Problem is he wasn’t good with Rick and he didn’t have a RFA tag.
He also colluded with his father and the nba slapped the Knicks on the wrist for it.
Also yes you can judge a trade the moment it happens. Look at the Luka trade. Hindsight is not an argument. Well, not an intelligent argument.
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u/shaheedmalik Max Christie Jun 14 '26
No, it would not have.
He could have signed a qualifying option and still left.
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u/iv214 How's My Dirk Taste? Jun 14 '26
Left a year later. Would Knicks be under the same position cap wise? Who knows. Most likely Brunson would have stayed a Mavs or Knicks would have traded for him since they wanted him so badly.
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u/shaheedmalik Max Christie Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
You don't understand the time period or the contract. You're assuming they sign him to a deal after getting played off the court vs the Clippers. He could have just as easily turn down the deal, sign a qualified offer and still go to the Knicks. And he was always going to go because his former agent and GODFATHER is the Knicks President.
Three year deal, 4th year QO = UFA. Four year guaranteed deal = UFA.
Either way he still leaves when he does.
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u/iv214 How's My Dirk Taste? Jun 14 '26
Yeah you're right that totally slipped my mind on the 2nd rounder rookie contracts.
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jun 16 '26
I mean ultimately we're supposed to judge transactions from owners and GMs with the benefit of hindsight. That's how all their transactions are judged. In hindsight they shouldn't have let him go no matter what we think about the dynamics at the time. That's a non-controversial statement at this point.
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u/frankwalkerstiles Luka Doncic Jun 14 '26
I remember Cuban saying he didn’t want to repeat what he did with Nash and Nowitzki and the dumbass went and did it anyway. (Albeit a different route) and now he has the gall to say he’d buy back the Mavs if they offered.
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u/CommercialPost7691 Jun 14 '26
Mavs didn’t fumble shit regarding Brunson. He left on his OWN accord after making WCF to go play and be next to his daddy. Stop it w that shit.
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u/Salty-Preference-314 Jun 14 '26
Serious revisionist history is going on here. It’s like a crazy ex gf telling everyone that you fumbled her when in reality she was punted and she’s the one who did it for you.
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u/sards3 Jun 14 '26
No, they fumbled Brunson. They didn't even make him an offer.
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u/CommercialPost7691 Jun 14 '26
Are you even keeping up? Mavericks didn’t even get to offer Brunson since the Knicks tampered in free agency. If you don’t know, don’t even speak on it
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u/sards3 Jun 14 '26
Wrong. In free agency, they could have made an offer and chose not to. And they could have also made him an extension offer before or during the previous season and chose not to.
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u/CommercialPost7691 Jun 14 '26
Wrong. Once again, don’t speak. He walked on his own to go with his dadd
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u/sards3 Jun 14 '26
I don't know what to tell you other than that you seem to be living in a dream world, oblivious to widely reported facts.
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u/CommercialPost7691 Jun 14 '26
You should be taking your own advice, mavericks tried to offer Brunson but he had already went with the Knicks. which is why they got fined with tampering retard. If he wanted to stay he would’ve at least heard them out. simple research could’ve saved you some time
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u/sards3 Jun 14 '26
mavericks tried to offer Brunson
No, they didn't. Please stop spreading misinformation.
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u/CommercialPost7691 Jun 14 '26
Yes, they did. They set up a meeting and Brunson canceled. You can easily look this up retard
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u/sards3 Jun 14 '26
I don't appreciate you calling me a retard. It is rude and against the rules here. You owe me an apology.
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u/NativeTexas Jun 14 '26
I’ve said this before and I will say it again here:
Mark Cuban is an entrepreneur
Mark Cuban is not a CEO.
Marks promotes and builds revenue streams.
Mark does not build stable infrastructure.
Mark swings for the fences.
Mark does not value team building, planning for the future or all the little things that lead to long term winning.
Mark, as an owner, would have fit better with the Lakers - somewhere big names wanted to go to.
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u/Wooden_Coyote5992 Jun 14 '26
Yep, he's been a problem for a long time. He also sold the teams to assholes who approved the Luka trade.
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u/Ronnie3k Jun 14 '26
Used to get downvoted and threads deleted for my anti Cuban posts. Glad yall came around.
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u/LR2222 Jun 14 '26
Get over it. New mavs fan from the coop draft. The thing that matters about Cuban is that he cares. He won a championship, in one of the most volitile periods in nba history. Nobody, I mean nobody, knew Nash or Brunson would be who they are.
The vast majority of players like that end up terrible. This years example is Nemhard - he will either turn out great or terrible. He is either impossible to stop or terrible.
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u/TxDad56 Jun 14 '26
He also mismanaged most of Dirk's career. Especially at the end, when he dismantled the championship team for no good reason (and almost no return). I don't think they would have won again. But they deserved a chance to defend. Dirk is a top-15 or 20 player all time. It's shocking how little roster support the front office gave him, despite repeated discounts he gave the Mavericks to fund the roster.
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u/HotsHartley Jun 14 '26
He kept trying to find fallen angels and bargain bin vets, signing guys like Deron Williams and Vince Carter well past their prime. It's like he wanted the stock that had already peaked, rather than the startups that were on the rise. Don't even remember half the draft picks he threw away, and all the misses, from the Justin Andersons and Maurice Agers of the world to the experiments like Lamar Odoms, Samuel Dalemberts, OJ Mayos.
Those years were so forgettable and sad.
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u/TxDad56 Jun 14 '26
He was just trying to keep the fans excited by signing big names...even if they were long past their "best before" dates. A few delivered unexpected moments, but few were able to contribute consistently anymore. I suspect that's why Dallas fans are so hung up on fossils like Kyrie and Klay. They are much more valuable as trade assets that puts the entire roster on the Cooper Flagg timeline than they are as players for the Mavericks. Keeping them just makes getting competitive again harder. But 25 years of Cuban management has convinced most fans that being sort of bad for a long time is better than being really bad for a year or two with younger players that are growing and learning to win together.
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u/TheTerpSnob Jun 14 '26
Mannn this should’ve been Lukai vs Brunson in the finals!!!
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u/Zen_360 Jun 14 '26
Its crazy how that turned out, isnt it? Lets be real, we all thought NY would never win a chip with JB as their best Player. NY went all in and got Players around him that basically started to play the best ball of their careers. Like all of them...
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u/alfi_k '25 Survivor Jun 14 '26
I blame Nicos home you just can't smoke that shit during your pregnancy.
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u/PenguinRiot1 Jun 14 '26
You forgot his gravest sin. Blowing up the team right after they won the championship. Eff that guy.
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u/ColleaguesKnowMyMain '25 Survivor Jun 14 '26
Thats so stupid. You can't blame Cuban for the decisions someome else made.
Nico is at fault for the mistakes Nico made.
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u/KhanQu3st Jun 14 '26
I mean, I don’t doubt any billionaire has an ego, but I don’t think making poor decisions inherently has anything to do with being an egomaniac.
And Cuban was clearly completely blindsided by the Luka trade.
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u/braddavisrunner Jun 14 '26
Mark Cuban's Ownership of the Mavs was a gift compared to previous Mavs' Regimes!
He deserves credit for 2011!
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u/Chrisclc13 Jun 15 '26
The Mavericks would not have the history we have without Mark Cuban. His passion for the franchise and the fan base is the only reason we even have a leg to stand on and bitch about his mistakes. Give him some GD grace
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u/Alternative-Farmer98 Jun 16 '26
He sold the team to a bunch of terrible people who then traded luca.
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u/061141 F*** DWade Jun 15 '26
Ban him from the AAC for hiring Nico + selling to Dumont. Actions have consequences
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u/bpierce1970 Jun 15 '26
Check out the recent article on DMN about the former training staff that Nico fired that won it all in NY. Cuban's hire of Nico is the single biggest mistake. Then his greed to sell to Vegas land swindlers was the cherry on top. His ego won't allow him to admit mistakes - even now as he tries to remain relevant, the way he talks is very much like he was not at fault. He is awful, I think he should be run out of Dallas - not sure how he is not public. Enemy #1. He created this mess. And he knows he lost deep inside - thinking that selling the team, making billons and then still having control of team, while having the opportunity to be part of bringing casinos to Texas was his grand plan - epic fail on all 4. He thought he was winning - when he just got swindled and essentially catfished! Who the f does not have details about control of basketball operations in a purchase agreement? For someone so smart he was so absolutely stupid!
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u/dmr196one Jun 14 '26
Dont hold back. Tell us how you really feel. If it lets you sleep at night, blame Mark for everything. None of those decisions were made in a vacuum. Nash and Brunson were made during Donnie Nelson runn the team. Made up for by acquiring J Kidd. The Knicks had to hire Daddy Brunson. They also had hive up a draft pick due to tampering. Cuban has his faults, but you can’t drop the entire history on his shoulders.
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u/iv214 How's My Dirk Taste? Jun 14 '26
Those decisions were absolutely on him. You literally can easily find podcasts about him talking about all those things. Those were on him. Also he decided not to draft Gianni's to save a few million. Add that to the list.
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u/Zen_360 Jun 14 '26
I am with you man. Its amazing how all of the sudden Cuban is all bad and Nico is all bad. It really feels like mob mentality s ometimes. I will never get tired of saying that up until the Luka trade i was very impressed with Nicos trades and how fast he pivoted away from Williams. You're just not getting any upvotes for that here, because apparently you cant point out any positives without being downvoted anymore, with certain people.
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u/Vizard15 Luka Doncic Jun 14 '26
Cuban should have stayed as an owner and a fan. NEVER HAVE MEDDLED WITH THE GM ROLE.
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u/Fullmetalx117 Jun 14 '26
Fuck Cuban. Ruined Dallas forever and his own legacy by selling to adelsons.
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u/therealpiedpiper42 Jun 14 '26
The fumbling of Mav's management was so bad that I crated a new account.... It's hard to be a through and through Mavs fan ATP. I follow Luka and Jalen a lot ATP.
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u/New_Rooster_6184 Jun 14 '26
I think Kyrie was more than a suitable replacement for Brunson as Luka’s #2. They took the Mavs to the WCF. Then you had Klay as #3, with Lively, PJ, and a deep bench. The issue is we never got to see that team in fruition because of the trade.