{"id":694086,"date":"2026-04-02T15:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/694086\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T15:21:17","slug":"mark-cuban-sounds-off-on-the-sale-and-the-trade-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/694086\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Cuban sounds off on the sale and the trade… again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into their Friday night game against the Orlando Magic<\/a>, the Dallas Mavericks<\/a> sit as the sixth worst team in the NBA with a 24-52 record. With only six games remaining in the season, you would think the team could quietly head into the offseason with a focus squarely on the draft. Mark Cuban had other ideas and instead stirred up some ghosts of the past.<\/p>\n

Cuban was a guest on the Intersections Podcast<\/a> where, among other things, he spoke about selling his majority stake in the Mavericks to the Adelson-Dumont families, and the trade of Luka Doncic. Before the podcast even became available to listen to, an excerpt made the rounds wherein Cuban expressed regret over who he sold the Mavs to. What better teaser to get people to tune in, right? Unsurprisingly, the comment immediately garnered the attention of multiple media outlets and the Mavericks once again have attention for the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

In fairness to Cuban, the podcast ran nearly 90-minutes and he only discussed the Mavericks for eight of them. The attention his Mavs-related comments received are not commensurate with the podcast as a whole. That said, those comments were nonetheless provocative and it\u2019s all but impossible to believe Cuban wouldn\u2019t know they would be just that. There are a handful of quotes we\u2019ll dive into here, but you can also check out the podcast starting at the 56-minute mark to hear them straight from Cuban.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t regret selling. I regret who I sold to. I made a lot of mistakes in the process and I\u2019ll leave it at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is just bizarre and runs counter to any sense of professional decorum. We\u2019ve all heard the adage of not airing dirty laundry, but Cuban does just that. This comment also smacks of sour grapes, as Cuban is likely still bothered by the fact he was ousted from the control of basketball operations that he once claimed was promised to him on a handshake. Cuban certainly isn\u2019t wrong to feel resentment if in fact Patrick Dumont reneged on a promise, but as a billionaire business person, Cuban not getting himself a contract is a major oversight inconsistent with his apparent level of business prowess. It\u2019s fine to want to have your cake and eat it, too, but absent a contract, Dumont was well within his rights to do as he wished. Dumping on the majority owner who still has the right to buy more of your shares simply comes across as churlish and makes the organization look amateurish at the dawn of the Cooper Flagg era, and on the cusp of hopefully getting another franchise cornerstone in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI called the new owner and he started telling me stuff that wasn\u2019t true that he had been told as the reason why he approved [the trade].\u201d<\/p>\n

No one is going to feel bad for Nico Harrison, but Cuban calling him an outright liar is basically one of two things. A pot shot at Harrison, who is already reviled by the fanbase; or an odd protection of Dumont as someone who was manipulated by a person of Grima Wormtongue proportions. After his preceding comment, it\u2019s difficult to imagine Cuban defending the man he just offended moment prior. All this does is once again make the organization appear as though it is run by a bunch of clueless caricatures, right on the cusp of potentially hiring a new GM<\/a> and trying to build the future behind Flagg and a pending high draft pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I\u2019ll tell you is, that it wasn\u2019t Michael Finley and you can surmise who else was in the room\u2026 That doesn\u2019t justify it for our coach and our general manager to stand up and trade our best player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is the doozy. Cuban does Finley a major service here. As someone as close to the Mavs as he has been for decades (and someone I admit to being a huge fan of), it\u2019s nice to hear further evidence that he had nothing to do with trading away Luka Doncic. This is especially critical as all signs seem to indicate Finley will be involved with the franchise long term, quite possibly being a long term co-GM with Matt Riccardi. But all of that buries the lede.<\/p>\n

The juice in this quote is Cuban grouping head coach Jason Kidd in with Nico Harrison as a decision maker in the trade of Doncic. Cuban doesn\u2019t elaborate, so it\u2019s quite possible Kidd\u2019s story from the outset \u2013 that he was notified at the 11th hour \u2013 is true. He may have been brough over the fence after the deal was all but done, and he may very well have agreed. It seems clear from their interactions (or lack thereof), that Doncic himself believes Kidd was involved. Again though, none of that is really the point. Cuban ripping on the loathed former GM is one thing, but slinging mud at the active head coach is another thing entirely. Why do it? We\u2019re over 400 days removed from the trade and rounding out a dreadful season, yet the team (minority) owner feels the need to say this?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care\u201d (when asked if the sale and everything thereafter has hurt his legacy).<\/p>\n

This quote all but ended the Mavericks\u2019 portion of the podcast, as Cuban segued from that quote into speaking about how he\u2019s hoping to change people\u2019s lives by way of his prescription medication business. Still, this may be the most attention-getting quote of the entire segment. It\u2019s one thing to spill the tea in ways that arguably do nothing but damage the team image. At least you can say you were asked a question and gave an honest answer. But to then say you don\u2019t care about how selling the team \u2013 which directly led to the Doncic trade and now Dumont as the primary decision maker \u2013 affects your legacy as owner is stunningly preposterous. Cuban has practically gone on a media tour since February, 2025 to make sure anyone and everyone knows a) he got victimized by a liar who went back on an agreement and a GM that cut him out, b) had nothing to do with trading Doncic and never would have done so himself and c) that Dumont is a sucker and wouldn\u2019t be here at all if he had a do-over.<\/p>\n

To be clear, I\u2019m not here to tell Mark Cuban how to live or what to say. However, it\u2019s my job to cover team-related news and give my opinion. In this case, that opinion is a simple one \u2013 I wish Mark Cuban would stop talking about all of this. It does nothing but paint the team in a bad light, causes internal turmoil and distracts from what should be the excitement and hope of special things to come in the Flagg era of Mavericks\u2019 basketball. Cuban didn\u2019t have to sell his majority stake. If he\u2019s being honest about not wanting his children involved in the franchise due to all the stress it could bring, there was a simple solution \u2013 don\u2019t let them work within the franchise. He had every opportunity to maintain control and instead elected not to. Fine. To each their own. But please stop tarnishing the team\u2019s image in this strange apology\/explanation tour that has frankly gone on far too long.<\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me @_80MPH<\/a> on X, and check back often at Mavs Moneyball<\/a> for all the latest on the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into their Friday night game against the Orlando Magic, the Dallas Mavericks sit as the sixth worst…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,4584,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-694086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-mavericks-analysis","14":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116335797039407149","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}