Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban (left) and governor Patrick Dumont, listen during the a press conference officially introducing Dallas Mavericks first overall pick Cooper Flagg on Friday, June 27, 2025, at Mavericks Training Center in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar/Staff Photographer
On the day the Mavericks were sold, the franchise’s jubilant new ownership partners seemed unified in every sense.
Amid the euphoria, few reporters questioned the partnership’s purported irregular framework. The minority owner would be the public-facing basketball overseer; the majority owner would take a basketball backseat and focus on planning a new arena and surrounding development.
This ill-fated scenario describes the Dec. 27, 2023, sale of the Mavericks and current Patrick Dumont–Mark Cuban discord. It also depicts the May 1, 1996, sale of the Mavericks and the touted, but short-lived Ross Perot Jr.-David McDavid ownership dynamic.
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For fans still wondering why Cuban on July 8 filed a Dallas County court petition accusing Dumont of “adversarial business practices,” a century-old adage comes to mind: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Related: Mark Cuban goes to court for records on Dallas Mavericks’ Valley View arena deal
Cuban’s petition states that his $3.8 billion-valuation sale of the franchise’s majority interest to the Dumont and Miriam Adelson families included a handshake agreement that Cuban, despite having his stake reduced to 27%, would continue to oversee basketball operations.
In 1996, auto-dealer magnate McDavid regarded himself as the frontman of the $125 million-valuation purchase from Mavericks founding owner Donald Carter. Why? Because he says Perot told him so, despite Perot’s 37% stake outsizing McDavid’s 20%.
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“The only reason we were able to buy it is because Carter and I were close friends,” McDavid, 84, recalled to The Dallas Morning News this week. “As I got involved, Perot came to me and wanted to be in. And I thought, ‘Well, s—, if this doesn’t go right it could break me forever.’
“Having a partner who had that kind of money was sensible. But I didn’t realize what a prick he was.”
Don Carter, left, shake hands with minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks David McDavid, right, and majority owner Ross Perot, Jr., center, after giving them commemorative ownership trophies during the press conference announcing the sell of the Mavericks at Reunion Arena Wednesday, May 1, 1996.
David Woo/Dallas Morning News
Cuban has said in interviews, and in his July 8 petition, that his loss of control over basketball operations was gradual, punctuated 14 months later by the shocking Feb. 1, 2025, trade of Luka Doncic, with general manager Nico Harrison only informing Cuban at the last moment.
Related: Mark Cuban says he regrets decision to sell Mavericks to Miriam Adelson, Patrick Dumont
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McDavid’s tale is less known, not only because it happened three decades ago, but due to the fleeting nature of his frontman role.
“It was relatively quick,” he said. “It was within two or three weeks, I think.”
In January 2000, Perot sold the Mavericks’ controlling interest to Cuban at a $285 million valuation.
Perot kept a minority stake, 5%, in the name of one of his companies, Hillwood Investment Properties.
It’s unclear how often during the next 23 years Cuban and Perot shared the boardroom as majority and minority owner, but it’s safe to say they never co-hummed kumbaya.
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Cuban often publicly complained about fans’ restricted access to American Airlines Center’s neighboring Hillwood-controlled surface parking lots.
Perot unsuccessfully sued Cuban multiple times, citing his “litany of questionable business, financial and personal decisions” that hurt Hillwood’s bottom line as a Mavericks shareholder.
Related: Mark Cuban: Lawsuit from Ross Perot Jr. ‘a joke’
In a 2010 suit, Perot claimed the Mavericks’ debt exceeded $200 million, putting the franchise in “imminent danger of insolvency.” Cuban retorted that Perot was “trying to find nickels in the sofa cushion.”
The case was dismissed in November 2011, shortly after Cuban’s attorney submitted into evidence what amounted to a legal mic drop: A photo of Cuban and his Mavericks on the night of June 12, 2011, hoisting the NBA championship trophy in Miami.
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A look into AAC
Now Cuban is legally calling out Dumont’s “adversarial” business practices. His petition cites as a prime example the Mavericks-Stars legal battle over control of AAC.
“When discussions with the Dallas Stars related to the American Airlines Center reached a boiling point,” Cuban wrote in his “verification and declaration” section of the petition, “I spoke to Dumont, who told me that he had instructed his lawyers to review the agreements related to [AAC] to find anything that could be used as leverage over the Stars.”
What the Mavericks discovered was a clause in the NBA and NHL teams’ 1998 lease agreements during AAC’s construction. The clause requires both teams to maintain their principal headquarters in Dallas.
In May of this year, Texas Business Court judge Bill Whitehill ruled the Mavericks had legal grounds when they, in 2025, cited the Stars’ 2003 headquarters move to Frisco as a lease breech. Pending a potential appeal by the Stars, the Mavericks have legally claimed the Stars’ 50% interest in Center Operating Company, which controls AAC.
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Related: Mavericks-Stars legal skirmish won’t play out in high-profile trial, after all. What’s next?
“As a result of the lawsuit,” Cuban wrote in his petition declaration, “my interest in the American Airlines Center also increased.”
What Cuban doesn’t specify in the petition is why his stake in AAC might become exponentially more valuable in July 2031, when the Mavericks’ and Stars’ leases are scheduled to expire.
The details are contained in another little-known late 1990s lease provision. Multiple Mavericks and Stars officials who have seen the clause say it entitles the entity or entities controlling Center Operating Company as of the 2031 lease expiration to purchase AAC and the land on which it sits for $1 million.
Certainly, the market value of that prime real estate would be a windfall for one or both franchises, even as the Stars plan a move to Plano; the Mavericks to Valley View.
Related: Mavericks, Stars abandoning American Airlines Center feels like the death of downtown Dallas
For Cuban it could mean a piece of the golden egg. The Adelson-Dumont families’ Mavericks purchase gives them the ability to buy up to 20% of Cuban’s 27% stake in the franchise by December 2027, but it’s unclear whether the clause extends to real estate and other revenue.
“Because new business opportunities, including a casino, were contemplated when I sold the Mavericks . . . ” Cuban wrote in his declaration. The rest of that sentence and paragraph are redacted.
Development disputes
Also redacted in the petition is more than a page of listed contract agreements and provisions under the section titled “Mark Cuban retains the right to participate in certain business opportunities.”
The Verified Rule 2002 Petition seeks one “limited pre-suit deposition” because Cuban says he’s been kept in the dark about all aspects of the Mavericks’ planned multibillion-dollar arena and entertainment district on 104 acres on the former site of Valley View Mall.
Close associations of Dumont and the Mavericks to Hillwood has sparked speculation that Cuban-enemy Perot’s company might play a role in the megadevelopment.
On Feb. 13, 2025, four days after his exclusive comments to The News about the Doncic trade and fallout, Dumont was the featured guest of Dallas’ The Real Estate Council, where he made his still-only videotaped comments about the trade.
Related: Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont makes first public comments after Luka Doncic trade
Interviewing Dumont on stage that day was Hillwood CEO Todd Platt. And last year, the City of Dallas contracted Hillwood Urban Services to assist the city and Mavericks in researching and suggesting potential downtown sites for the arena and entertainment district.
Dallas Mavericks head coach Jim Cleamons, center, shares a laugh with minority owner Frank Zaccanelli, left, about the hiring of the Dallas Mavericks new general manager Don Nelson, right, Friday afternoon at Reunion Arena.
Irwin Thompson
“I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but if Ross Perot Jr. and his companies are involved with the arena and mixed-use development on the 104 acres, nobody in the country can do it better,” said Frank Zaccanelli, Hillwood’s president from 1986 to 2000.
It was Zaccanelli, a lieutenant to Ross Perot Sr. and Jr., who negotiated Hillwood’s late 1990s purchase of the 65 acres of what would become Victory Park, including AAC’s 12-acre pad site.
And it was Zaccanelli who negotiated Perot’s 1996 Mavericks purchase, including a minority share for himself, as well as the 2000 sale of the team to Cuban.
News of Ross Perot Jr. and David McDavid buying the Dallas Mavericks made the front cover of The Dallas Morning News Thursday, May 2, 1996.
The Dallas Morning News
The story of Ross Perot Jr. and David McDavid buying the Dallas Mavericks continues on the jump of The Dallas Morning News Thursday, May 2, 1996.
The Dallas Morning News
Zaccanelli, too, has had battles with Cuban and hardly is an unbiased observer, but he has insight into the Cuban-Perot relationship, and he suspects a Dumont-Perot alliance would not sit well with Cuban.
“Ross Jr. would never do something vindictively to upset Mark Cuban,” Zaccanelli said. “But Mark probably would feel the same way that Ross and I felt in 2011 when we were completely taken away from the celebrations around the NBA championship, after everything we did to help the franchise during our years of ownership.”
Zaccanelli scoffs at Cuban’s court petition statement that his agreement with Dumont to oversee basketball operations “was reiterated multiple times over email and orally in the presence of Dumont, Miriam Adelson, another NBA owner and Mavericks employees.”
Said Zaccanelli of Cuban: “He knows that some handshake in a $3.8 billion deal is not going to hold up in Judge Judy’s court, let alone state or federal court.”
30 months later, I can’t fathom how I’d explicitly been told Mark Cuban wouldn’t oversee ops or serve as alternate governor, yet somehow Cuban didn’t know? I was told Cuban’s comments perturbed Dumont, but he didn’t want to make a public stink. This was the night of the sale. pic.twitter.com/0VwdlNpRzd
— Brad Townsend (@townbrad) July 8, 2026
Repeating history
Regarding McDavid’s version of 1996 events, Zaccanelli said they’re “categorically not accurate,” though he declined to elaborate.
Certainly the May 1, 1996, news conference in Reunion Arena to announce the purchase from Carter gave every indication McDavid would be the ownership’s public frontman.
Former Dallas Mavericks owner Donald Carter, left, shakes hands with new owners Ross Perot, Jr. and David McDavid after the sale was announced Wednesday, May 1, 1996, in Dallas.
Ron Heflin/Associated Press
Facing the roomful of reporters and TV cameras were Carter, Perot and McDavid. Carter presented Perot and McDavid with statuettes commemorating their new stewardship of the franchise Carter co-founded with Norm Sonju in 1980.
“I’ve never had a great desire to own a sports team,” Perot said that day. “David talked me into this.
“Frank and I are going to build warehouses. We’re going to let David run the team day in and day out.”
That day it was announced Sonju would stay on as president and general manager. Just 15 days later, reporters reassembled in the same room to hear Sonju’s four-minute retirement speech and see him walk out without taking questions.
Related: New to Dallas? Here’s what to know about the Mavericks
The previous week, there had been a protocol bungle in the Mavericks’ search for a coach to replace Dick Motta. Indiana coach Larry Brown’s name appeared on the Mavericks’ reported list of five candidates, without Dallas getting permission from the Pacers to consider him.
Perot announced that Zaccanelli, not McDavid, would be the Mavericks’ president. Perot also announced Zaccanelli would lead the searches for a coach and general manager.
Supposed frontman McDavid attended that news conference, then vanished from public view where the Mavericks were concerned.
“[Zaccanelli] undermined that whole deal,” McDavid said. “So I kind of threw my hands up, said ‘Fine’ and walked away, so to speak.”
Thirty years later, McDavid admits some specifics are murky, but not his feelings.
“We had an agreement,” he said. “I don’t recall if it was in the writing or not, but somehow they screwed me out of it.”
For the next four years, McDavid kept his partnership stake, though it whittled to 12.5% by the time Cuban purchased the franchise, including McDavid’s share.
Related: Mark Cuban buying back the Mavericks? Here’s why that’s not going to happen
“I didn’t really know Mark Cuban, but I knew about him,” McDavid said. “And I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be partnered with him because I thought he was pretty wild and crazy.
“It turned out he wasn’t, but that’s what I thought.”
McDavid said he hasn’t closely followed the Dumont-Cuban conflict, but he says he and Cuban share a kinship in the bottom-line sense.
“The majority stock always wins.”