Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban remains in the sideline during the first half of an NBA basketball game between Dallas Mavericks and LA Clippers, on Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023, at American Airlines Center in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar/The Dallas Morning News
With Luka Doncic coming to town Sunday for the third time as a Laker and the first as a legitimate MVP candidate, a front row season-ticket holder felt the need to redraw the lines. With shouts of “Fire Nico” no longer necessary, Mark Cuban loaded up “Fire Jason” for angry Dallas Mavericks fans with his declaration on a recent podcast that it was Kidd and Harrison who made the call to dispatch Luka to the forever champions out west.
It’s an important reminder that while Cuban no longer owns the Mavericks (or much of them anyway), he can still be just as small and petty as he was during his 23-year tenure.
Article continues below this ad
I don’t imagine any of you could have missed it by now, but in a nearly hourlong podcast interview, Cuban dropped in a line about “our coach and our general manager” trading Luka to the Lakers. No elaboration. No context. Passive-aggressive behavior at its finest.
The team was in Milwaukee, and when Kidd was asked about it, he said, “When are we going to move on?” Didn’t offer any real discussion of his knowledge, and I’ve always assumed Kidd was at least kept in touch by Harrison while the talks with LA were ongoing. There was something of a deer-in-the-headlights look to Kidd every time he said “11th hour” in terms of explaining when he learned of the deal. Maybe it was just the glasses. It never really mattered to me.
Kidd wasn’t co-GM. Kidd wasn’t in position to stop it. Kidd wasn’t the one meeting at various coffee houses with the Lakers’ Rob Pelinka and arriving at the conclusion that Anthony Davis, Max Christie and a tall horchata latte were going to fill all of his needs.
Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.
Add Preferred Source
But fans don’t want to move on, they want to scream. I can’t blame them. I wasn’t joking when I wrote that it was worse than the Babe Ruth trade the Red Sox made a century ago because at least the owner was getting what he wanted (funding for a very successful but improperly maligned musical called No, No, Nanette) while the Yankees got all those World Series. Harrison’s goal was a defense that would win championships. He got 29 games spread over two seasons before the club shipped Davis to the Wizards for spare parts and broken hearts.
Article continues below this ad
But if you’re going to yell at Kidd, maybe think about that just for a minute. Think about the guy seated just around the corner near the end of the bench. Who chose to replace Donnie Nelson with an unconventional choice as general manager and give him ultimate authority? Who hired Kidd to replace Rick Carlisle? Who sold the team to the Adelson/Dumont group to pocket a couple of billions in cash?
Cuban now says he regrets selling to these particular owners as he again tries to remove himself from any blame. Did he not know she was a major, major donor for Donald Trump? Did he not know these people were casino owners and not the most basketball-savvy folks in the land? For months, Cuban fed the preposterous notion that they had told him he could continue to run basketball operations even after they purchased majority ownership of the club. Fans (some of them, anyway) buy that, too. If it fits your narrative of what you’d love the truth to be, go right ahead, but that claim has always been absurd. The new owners indicated as much right away, even if they didn’t publicly address it for several months, allowing Cuban to maintain the storyline.
If you want to get down to the bottom-line reason Luka isn’t still doing his thing as one of the most beloved Mavericks of all time, it’s because Cuban needed or wanted cash. That’s really it. If the sale doesn’t happen, Luka’s wearing Mavericks green Sunday night or whatever color they happen to be sporting. We don’t know exactly why Cuban sold because he has changed his story on that, too.
Initially, it was because the next step with the location for a new arena involved passing casino gambling, and that was out of his wheelhouse. (Turned out to be out of the Adelson/Dumont wheelhouse as well, welcome to the Texas Legislature). Now it’s because Cuban didn’t want his kids working for the organization and having to deal with the nasty criticism that sometimes rides shotgun, at least for those with public-facing positions. I guess at least we have learned the one area where he most differs with Jerry Jones.
Article continues below this ad
By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy.
Whatever the reasons, they are Cuban’s reasons. But that sale and his placement of Harrison, a man whose Nike background gave him a completely different relationship with players and no real understanding of building basketball teams, in the position of authority are how Luka ended up a Laker. What Kidd knew and when he knew it — why does anyone care? It wasn’t his trade to make, and nothing in the Mavericks’ organizational structure empowered him to stop it. The one guy who could have reeled in Nico chose to exit the game.
So now all he does is talk.
Find more Mavericks coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.