Mavs owner Mark Cuban was given a hefty fine for telling his team that the current plan is to tank the season. The fine, which totals $600,000, was announced by commissioner Adam Silver, and reportedly could've been as much as $1 million:
Cuban had stated to host Julius Erving on Monday's House Call With Dr. J podcast that he explained to his team that losing is their best option at the moment, which makes it sound like the lesson here is to not be transparent?
"I'm probably not supposed to say this, but, like, I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are, you know, we weren't competing for the playoffs. I was like, 'Look, losing is our best option,'" Cuban said. "Adam would hate hearing that, but I at least sat down and I explained it to them. And I explained what our plans were going to be this summer, that we're not going to tank again. This was, like, a year-and-a-half of tanking, and that was too brutal for me. But being transparent, I think that's the key to being kind of a players' owner and having stability."
Worse still for the franchise, they're also simultaneously dealing with negative pushback to a Sports Illustrated investigation which described sexual misconduct within the Mavs organization as an "Animal House"-type culture.
As of now, the Mavs are 18-40, which gives them the third worst record in the NBA and also the worst win percentage since Cuban took over the team in 2000.
