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Tim MacMahon
Multiple Authors
The divide continues to deepen between Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavericks’ controlling owners.
Cuban, who sold the majority share of the franchise to the Adelson and Dumont families in December 2023, has privately grumbled for more than a year about the business partners he chose. He took those complaints public during an appearance on an episode of the “Intersections” podcast that published Tuesday morning.
“I don’t regret selling,” Cuban said. “I regret who I sold to. I made a lot of mistakes in the process, and I’ll leave it at that.”
After the sale closed at a $3.5 billion valuation, Cuban was adamant that he would continue to have control of the Mavs’ basketball operations despite Patrick Dumont taking over as the franchise’s governor. Cuban, who maintains a 27% stake in the franchise, boasted at the time that “nothing really changes except my bank account.”
At the time of the sale, Cuban cited the financial pressure of funding an NBA contender as his primary motivation for the transaction. He said it had been too much of a financial burden for a “middle-class billionaire” like himself.
In his podcast appearance this week, Cuban cited the “emotional commitment” of being a majority owner for driving his decision to sell the team.
“You hear the passion and everything,” Cuban said. “Now imagine going up and down like that every single game. That’s hard.
“My kids, they were coming of age where they would have the mindset that they want to work at the Mavs. I didn’t want them to. If fans don’t like what you’re doing or the team’s not doing well, you’re the worst human being on the planet.”
Cuban portrayed the deal as a partnership pairing his basketball expertise with the financial might and real estate savvy of the families who own the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and intend to build a new arena as part of a resort and entertainment district in Dallas.
No other sources involved in the inner workings of the franchise sale support Cuban’s claim that him continuing to make basketball operations decisions was part of the deal. There was no language in the contract regarding Cuban running basketball operations.
Cuban soon became completely boxed out of the team’s basketball operations, and he bit his tongue as Luka Doncic led a renovated Dallas roster to the 2024 NBA Finals months after the sale closed.
However, Cuban was irate when Dumont approved then-general manager Nico Harrison’s stunning decision to trade Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in February 2025. Cuban was blindsided by the deal, which is widely considered one of the worst trades in sports history. He received a call from Harrison informing him about the deal once it had already been finalized.
Harrison was fired in November, when the Mavs had a 3-8 record and trade acquisition Anthony Davis was sidelined by a calf strain, amid relentless fan outrage. Cuban was among the people who lobbied Dumont behind the scenes to fire Harrison.
Cuban believed at the time that he would have a prominent role in the Mavs’ basketball operations again, albeit not in a decision-making capacity. Much to his disappointment, that has not been the case, sources said.
It’s been a miserable season for the Mavs despite lucking out in the draft lottery, cashing in 1.8% odds to land the No. 1 pick and selecting Cooper Flagg. While Flagg is a Rookie of the Year candidate, the Mavs have a 24-51 record, the sixth worst in the league. Davis played a total of only 29 games for the Mavs before being traded to the Washington Wizards at this season’s deadline in a salary-dump deal that prioritized financial flexibility.
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