The Ringer NBA Show - Mark Cuban on the Mavericks’ Playoff Push, How He Stays on the Cutting Edge, and More | Real Ones

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Logan and Raja kick off Mavericks Week on the 'Real Ones' podcast with the one, the only, Mavs owner Mark Cuban. They get into everything from how he stays on the forefront of amenities for players to how Jason Kidd differs from Rick Carlisle as a head coach. Plus, Luka Doncic’s relationship with Dirk Nowitzki, what precipitated the big personnel changes the Mavericks made this season, how he became the godfather of streaming, and so much more. Hosts: Logan Murdock and Raja Bell Guest: Mark Cuban Producer: Sasha Ashall Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Social Producer: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, I'm Evan Mack with the MacMania podcast with my two fellas. I'm Brooklyn's own, Flobo Boys. And I'm the Hall of Farmer, Jack Farmer. Follow and listen on Spotify and catch us on the Spotify Green Room after major wrestling events. Hey, Roger, guess what? What, buddy? We have a guest on, we have a really fun guest for the start of our Mavericks Week. Mavericks Week.

You thought it was going to be that little the dog days. How the Macb? How do Mavs get a whole damn week? Why are you at such a curmudgeon, bro? Like, why are you always doing this, bro? I'm not. I'm just asking, we ain't nobody got a week. The Mavs got a week.

I mean, I get, well, in fairness, in fairness, no, no other person of this person's stature from another organization has blessed us with their presence. So in fairness, maybe it deserves a week. I'm just saying, we can start of Mavs week because we got somebody up in the building that warrants it. So, you know, let's get to the episode. Real ones up next. What's popping?

Logan Murdoch here, Roger Bell there. Real ones. Raja, it is our Mavs Palooza, and we have a special guest. Usually I go with the guests, but this is someone near and dear to your heart, so I'm going to throw it to you, but who we got in the building right now, Rob? Yeah, one of my favorite people of all the time. I don't think he knows this, but I was in Spain, really salty that I had to be there after my stint with the Sixers.

And my agent, who was a really good friend of mine to this day, overheard a phone call that I was having with my sister and my mother at the time. I hadn't disconnected from him. And I was MFing him and this and that and so on and so forth and threatening to fire him if I couldn't get out of Europe. And this gentleman, one of the best owners in the game, pulled me back out of Feeba basketball and gave me a shot in the NBA again. It was 2002, 2003, Dallas Mavericks.

So Mark Cuban, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, what's going on, Roger? Actually, obviously I didn't know about the phone call, but I do remember saying, okay, we got to go get this guy. And I remember the moment when I decided, you know, that this guy can play. And that's when the Sixers were in the finals in 2001. And you were just running all over the court.

Your murder was just like faster, bigger, better. You and AI were just like getting it done. And I remember watching a couple plays going, that dude can play. And then when you weren't playing anywhere, I was like, okay, let's go get them. It'll fill a hole for us that we need. And hell, if you can give us 10 minutes now. No, hey, I appreciate that.

And it was a Cubs, I mean, you've had a lot of great teams. And I played on a lot of really good teams with great chemistry and locker rooms. But that bunch, not only on the court, I mean, but the type of pros that you had assembled that year, you know, mixed in with the young talent. and the personalities and the good times that were had. It's one of my all-time favorite teams. It was a great group. Yeah, that was fun. That's when I just bought the team.

So I was just a young gun, man, and we had fun on the court and off. I mean, you had Dirk and Nash and Finn and you, and you got to be friends with my brother-in-law and everything. That's right. All these relationships got built. Yeah, very cool. What was I like for you, Cubes,

when you were during those first couple of years of owning the Mavericks, right? Because you go in and you just got in the, you know, the sale to Yahoo, and then you buy this team and you're trying to take it by, take the NBA by storm with a lot of, with different ideas. Let's put it that way. And it kind of,

you kind of broke the mold on what an owner should be. What were those first few years like for, for you? I mean, number one, I wanted to win. Number two, I wanted to have fun.

And fortunately, I walked into a situation where, you know, we didn't realize what we had with Dirk and Nash and Finn. And, you know, everybody was always trying to trade everybody. And I was like,

no, we're just going to try to win. I remember sitting talking to Nellie or coach, And he was like, well, you know, when I came in, we were like 9 and 23 or something crazy. And I was like, no, we're not going to tank the season. We're going to try to win because we have to learn how to win. This team had won in 10 years. And we went like 31 and 19 the rest of the way out.

And it was just like, okay, now we're learning how to win. Next season had a few pieces. And we started to roll. And that and, you know, having just a great time off the court. I mean, I was 41 years old. And it was just like, let's go. Let's go. This is all new to me.

And I was just enjoying every minute of it. We'd be down there, Logan. First of all, I'll get to, you know, what, what Cubes did in terms of setting up, you know, an environment that people just wanted to be in, you know. But we'd be down there knocking heads in the gym. Like, you know, late in the season, you know, Stevie and and Dirk and Mike aren't practicing. So it would be me, Tariq Abdul Wahad, Popeye, Popeye Jones would be in there. Avery was a player. but he swore he was a coach already, so he'd be coaching us.

And Cubs would be over there in the corner under the stairwell on the treadmill. You remember that? Yeah, down there. Just keep it in. Still doing it. That's right. Just busting the sweat. Hey, I want to ask you, like, at the time, and we've talked about this on pod, about

you got kind of being on the forefront of this game of this kind of arms race of amenities where, when I got there, I had never, you know, Tracy Sarava was our dietitian, and I always make jokes. No one had ever known I was a vegetarian and asked me what I was. wanted on a plane. Like, and, you know, this was available to me and meals were there. And then, you know, you had this cool players lounge and you had PS4s and you just had, you know, you had things that made people want to be around. In a day and an age where everyone's trying to keep up with DeJones is how do you try to stay ahead of the curve in that? Like, what do you feel like today's

player? Um, what speaks to them? Yeah, it was a lot different back then because it was easy because no one did anything. You know, we would trade for guys from other teams. And I remember, you know, them saying, oh, we just went from the outhouse to the penthouse, you know, because most teams didn't do any of that. Now it's a lot harder because everybody's following the same path. You know, now guys are different. You know, we've got, you know, my 22 years, we've gone through like three generations of players. You know, when you were playing with us, it was just still like the old knockheads type generation, right? You know, the remnants of the Charles Oakley and the bad boys and all those guys. And it was a very physical, very macho game. And then that kind of

have evolved to like the 2010s where it was, the internet was becoming the thing and guys are becoming more aware of their brands. And now fast forward to the 2020s, right? Every kid who's 18 years old has been a star for years on social media and is a brand. And the players are bigger brands than the league. You know, LeBron and Luca and, you know, Janus, they have bigger impact when they say something than anything, Adam Silver, as the committee, missioner could say. And so, you know, now you've got to really recognize that players are brands. And they come as brands and they just think differently. Like, you know, back when I first took over, I remember there'd be like alcohol in the locker room. And there would be dudes that would smoke.

And I was like, no, that shit's got to go, right? Now, now, you know, that's why we brought in Tracy, you know, and we would, you know, when I first got there, we'd stay at like holiday ends and Marriots where there'd be no room service. And we upgraded to Rich Carlton's and four seasons where it was nice because I wanted guys to sleep while. Now, guys at halftime, the first thing they do while the coaches are talking, they take out their phone. You know, if that would have happened when you were in there, it would have been like,

what the fuck are you guys doing, right? Right. You're not into the game, right? But everybody does it. The vets, the OG, everybody does it, right? They want to know what plays they made. They want to know what people are saying. They want to know if there's any highlights all right.

up, you know. And so that mentality is just different. And that makes it harder for coaches. It doesn't make them less coachable. In fact, in some cases, it makes them more coachable because they're aware of what everybody's saying about them. Whereas back in the day, you know, there might be some beat writers who wrote something like, you know, you might get pissed off at Peter Vestey. I remember getting into little battles with him or the local beat writers or guys like that. But they just wrote in a newspaper and maybe did something on Sports Center. You know, now everybody. saw a sports center, but not everything you did was on sports center. Now, everything a player does is front and center everywhere. And it's just tweeted and it's posted on Instagram. It's on TikTok.

It's wherever. And guys are very, very aware of that. And so coaching them, developing them is different, but I think it's better. How do you, you know, right now, you've mentioned Luca and who is, by all accounts, and me and Raz will talk about this all the time is a generational talent. And you've seen that throughout your few years. But how do you, and there's been a lot of talk with, you know, this day and age, when you do have a star, it always seems like the narrative is, well, he's going to leave at some point, right? Or especially in this day of player movement, how do you as a front office person in this day and age keep a player, you know, engaged in wanting to be a part of your program while trying to combat all the outside noise that's a lot louder than it was back? or maybe, I don't know if not allowed, but a lot more in your face than it was maybe 10 years ago.

Yeah. You know, first you accept them for who they are. Lucas is just a great guy, super smart. He wants to win. That's what he's all about. He wants to work. And plus, we got really lucky. You know, Dirk, you know, his 21 years is last year, he played with Luca.

And they got to be close and they're really good friends. And so having that transition and having that connection is really important. I mean, you know how Dirk is, man. He's just the solid of the other. It's just an amazing human being. and he cares and he cares, you know, for the Mavs, he cares for the city of Dallas, and he cares as much for Luca. And I think that caring comes through and Luca appreciates it. And I think having, you know, a Hall of Famer like Dirk, um, there to really help support it makes a huge

difference that we are really fortunate there. That's interesting because I talk about that a lot. Um, being blessed to have the Dirk's in your life if you're Luca. Um, for me, it was, you know, Aaron McKees and Eric Snow's, Walt Williams, Nick Van Exel, Michael Finley. Like those dudes were, you know, they looked out. They taught me the ropes how to be a pro. But the league was a lot older than Mark. Like the league was an older league. And so while these kids are coming in way more, you know, way more astute in terms of social

media and brand building and maybe even their games because there's so much skill training now, you know, there is a lack of kind of perspective on some team. So how do you balance that and tell me, do you feel that when you have these kids in a locker room? Do you walk in a locker room and feel like you're addressing younger people now than you were 10 years ago? 100%. Yeah, without question. A lot of that has to do with, you know, the changes in the salary cap. Like in your era, in the 2000s of 2010, the salary cap was basically the same. And so, you know, the amount of money guys were making wasn't going up each and every year.

And so guys stuck around longer, you know, and the money wasn't nearly as big. Now, the money's insane, you know, I don't want to say insane for everybody, but the money's bigger, right? And so guys come in as young guys making more money, and that makes it a little bit different, you know, because you don't, depending on where your organization is in your life cycle, you may not have as many veterans to support them and allow them to grow. So you see organizations that are all young dudes. And to me, that's tough, right? You need to have a balance because, you know, you can have an amazing talent. But if you come into the league at 19 or 20, unless you're an exception, like you said, a generational talent like Luca, you still have to learn how to play basketball.

And it doesn't matter where in the world you're from, learning how to play NBA basketball is a unique skill. You know, it's not just playing basketball. There are so many nuances to the game in terms of basketball IQ, the lifestyle. And when I say lifestyle, keeping your body fresh, you know, all the nutrition, all those things that are required. And so that come game 82, you can still play, you know, because, you know, people rarely understand the physical toll, the mental toll it takes. And so it's harder to get guys to fully understand that because they literally have been the star everywhere. And unless you have somebody who can, you know, guide them, it's really difficult for them.

And for the coaches, too, for that matter. Right. We were talking, me and we were always talk about just, you know, how from AAU from a long time, these players, and you just mentioned just now, these players are celebrities before they even get on an internet professional floor. And that's, you know, with the expansion of the internet expansion of a lot of these companies. And also, and you just mentioned the influx of cash that are just coming into this league right now. With TV deals, you guys are going to have one set in a few years. But my question to you is, does. do you think it's a more even playing field in terms of owning a basketball team now than it was maybe 10 years ago?

Because I do see a, you know, the biggest, one of the biggest stars right now is in Memphis, John Morant. And you can make the case that, you know, wherever he is, he's a bankable star. Yeah. Do you think now that, you know, if you're owning an NBA team, maybe a smaller market, do you think that it's a bit more equitable than it, than it may be, maybe even 20, 25 years ago? Yeah, without question, particularly with, you know, a star like job, right? because, you know, you see one of his dunks. And a lot of it has to do with who the biggest fans of the NBA are

and how they consume NBA content, right? So it used to be you had to, you know, watch it on NBC. And then we got on TBS and TNT. And now, you know, with cord cutting, being on cable isn't necessarily the best thing. That's an older audience. And kids like my 12-year-old son or 15-year-old daughter in particular, like they're getting everything from TikTok and YouTube and Instagram. You know, they're not on Twitter.

They're, they're TikTok-away, you know. And so they become fans of the players more than they become fans of the team. And so when Job Moran gets that block or when he gets that, you know, that miracle, you know, pass from Stephen Adams, you know, or he's going above the square, that's perfect for fans of this generation or Yannis. So, you know, even LeBronstone, whoever it may be, they develop, you know, young fans develop affinity for, for play. more than teams. So you can be anywhere to answer your question, Logan. And you know, there aren't a lot of players who sell tickets on the road, you know.

And when you're one of those players, you can be anywhere. I want to ask Mark real quick about kind of not players, but the inner workings in the organization. You guys had a couple of little changeover there, Mark, like, you know, new coach. And I want to, I, I, Jay Kidd and we'll get to him eventually. but one of my favorite people in this world since I was a young player. I used to be with Ann One, and I met Nico Harrison through Mike Finley. And although he didn't rent me and I wasn't with Nike, man, he took care of me, he looked out for me. We'd go out to dinner sometimes with groups when I was in Portland, and I got to know him still one of my favorite people in the world.

And now he's within the organization, Mark, tell me about that process, how he's been doing. What about him? attracted you to him for the role? Yeah. You know, Nico, he calls himself to quiet, or other people call him, and he told me the quiet assassin. You know, what really attracted me to Nico is he's a relationship builder. And he knows how to connect to people. And he's patient and he's an amazing listener.

And, you know, he doesn't run to conclusions. He kind of balances me, right? Where I can be ready, fire aim and be an entrepreneur, he's an information, accumulator, and those are all skill sets that we needed at the Mavericks. And those are things he built and perfected over 19 years at Nike. And every single person I ever talked to about Nico loves them. You know, even the people he fired, they love them. And that's unique.

And I think, you know, you guys brought up earlier about, you know, guys who jump from team to team or go to different places or go where they want to feel most comfortable, you need the people in place that know how to make players feel comfortable and know how to make them feel accepted and know how to communicate with them in season. The ones that you need someone who guys want to go to dinner with. I'm not, you know, I'm to go out and have five beers guy, right? Nico is the guy that will sit there and have a three-hour dinner and talk about life. And he's just, he's amazing at that. I'm not, you know.

And as I get older, it's a lot easier for him to relate to a 20, 22-year-old kid than it is for me. And so Nico's just come in and fit in perfectly. You know, there's still the basketball side and talent evaluation. But still, he was good at talent evaluation because he had to choose who was going to be a star because that's how you get a signature shoe, you know, because it's an expensive mistake if you sign the wrong guy. Right.

He missed out on me. A lot of people did, Roger. You can't blame him. Not for no damn signature shoe, though, Mark. But, hey, if you get, tell him my son. I got my N1 gear. I got my N1 short. It's funny because, you know,

what I was talking about is just a transition to you guys are. I've seen you guys twice this season, you know, being in the Bay. I've seen you guys. The first time was, you know, in January and obviously a couple weeks ago when I saw you, Mark, it seems like you guys are in this transitional phase right now. You guys traded poor Zingis. You guys got, you know, you made a coaching change from Rick Carlotta Jason Kidd.

When did you realize that, you, you needed to maybe not go drastically change, but make sure you pivoted. Because you guys have pivoted over the last few years how your team is in order to win a title. What was the origin of this transitional period in your eyes? Well, first, you know, all teams go through life cycles because father time is undefeated, right? So as guys age, you know at some point you're going to have to rebuild or rejuvenate at some level. And so, you know, we wanted to be loyal to Dirk and let him play it out knowing, you know, as his last couple years, you know, we'd go through a rebuilding process, which got us Luka.

And then when Rick left, Carlisle left to go to the Pacers, it was like, okay, that's the perfect time to just say, you know what, let's just redo everything top to bottom, brought in Nico and with Nico's help and Dirk's help and Finn's help and Don Kalkstein's help brought in, Kate Grant brought in Jay Kidd. And even with Jay Kidd, right, when you're building a team, you kind of build knowing what your coach is all about.

And so we, you know, we were building with Rick and mine. And then as when Jay Kidd came in, you know, there was an evolutionary process where we have to see how players fit to J.Kid's model, right? Because J.Kid and Rick are completely different coaches. And so,

you know, over the course of this season, you know, we've kind of evolved and recognized that, okay, here's some guys that are great fit with J.Kid and are great fit with Luca and J.K.K.K.K.K.S. And that, you know, some guys, you know, we need things more than what we're getting from that. And so that's what led to the K.P. trade. And I think K.P. is going to be amazing in D.C. and you saw that last night. He just crushed it. And then, you know, Spence and Davis have been great for us. Yeah. It's when when I think about the, I want to talk about the, I want to talk about the coaching change before a second because I think that if I can compare it to anything, when I've

seen your history, if you make a decision on a coach and you're going to do it. It doesn't matter what time a year it is, especially one thing that always comes to mind is Don Nelson and Avery Johnson. When do you know that it's time to make a change? And why, if it has to be made a change, why does it have to be made a change so instant? Because it seemed very like it was going to, from an outside perspective that it was just, it was a quick thing that's like, man, this is a pretty big shift organizationally. Yeah, I mean, when Nellie left, he just quit. It was the middle of the season, you know.

So it was like, okay, you know, what got me turned on to Avery was we were played in 2003. We were playing Portland in the conference finals. Was it? Yeah, maybe it was. I forget which round it would. No, it was the first round. And we went up three O.

No one's ever lost three up, right? And they came back and tied us three three. That was a team with Sabonis and Rashid and Zach. And it was scary, right? Because we were playing at home game seven. And I remember Avery making a speech at halftime. You know, our will, our way. And, you know, and when Nelly had kind of taken little sabbaticals during the season,

Avery would take over. And so it was easy to pick Avery. And then when it was time to move on from Avey, you could just get the sense from players that, you know, they had kind of tuned them out. And that's, you know, that just happens. You know, coaches run their course at various times. Avery was great for us. I mean, we went 65 games, went to the finals. And then we thought we needed somebody with, you know, a little bit more playoff experience.

And that's when we went to Rick. And so I've only had Nellie, who was here when I got here. Avery was my choice. Rick was my choice. And now J. Kid. So I was there for what Mark's talking about. I was there in that Portland series of the series the young lady had forgotten the words to the anthem.

Yeah, that's when Beau came in and started singing. Yeah, it was brutal. But you knew Avery, you know, was going to coach. And Avery had ran a practice. Don Nelson was at, I don't know where he was that day, but Avery ran a practice. We watched film before practice, and there was a jump shot that I did not shoot.

At the time, Logan, you got to understand me. I just came back from Spain. We got all these great scores. And I know what my job is. My job is to defend. but I was a little reluctant to shoot. And so Avery busted my ass in film session about not shooting this ball. So I thought we were done.

But then he went out and ran practice. And so we were running skeleton. We were going up and down twice and running a play. And he said, now every time we run this play, I want the ball to get swung to Rajabelle and he's going to shoot that 15-foot jump shot. And he made me shoot a 15-foot jump shot every time down to him. And that sounds so much like Avery. You have a future doing impressions, Roger.

It was great. It was great. The general was great, man. And here's my other story. I'm going to tell a story. I'm going to let you get back to me. Sure. No, keep on going.

I love here. You remember Nellie's, were they Christmas parties? Or maybe they were, he used to have these legendary, like, parties at his house. I had never been. But everybody was like, hey, you and Cindy got to come to this. So we rolled out. It was packed. I think there were valets and stuff.

And I'm walking around the house thinking, like, I should probably say hello to the host, right? Meanwhile, I'm never going to get to him because there are thousands of there people everywhere. And so I find my way to this room. And when I walk in, there's a table laid out where people are playing blackjack. And there's people all accumulated watching the blackjack game. And then it dawns on me who's playing blackjack. It's like Willie Nelson, Don Nelson, and like three other people that would be megastars.

I don't really know who they were. And Nellie's got his dog in his lap, like cuddled up with his belly up. And he's pulling cards out of a shoot, like passing around the table while people just stand there and cheer. It was the wildest shit I've ever seen. That's Nellie. Nellie did a lot of wild shit. Yeah. No, I remember I used to cover the words before this, and I did an oral history once.

And the story that came out to start off, I think I was talking to Jason Richardson. And he talks about one of the, during a We Believe season or one of those seasons where they go to practice. And Nellie has the dog. I forgot the name with a dog. It just walks in and says, okay, you guys got practice. And I'm going to go walk out and chill. I was going to go dip. I'm going to leave.

I'm going to go to Lake Merritt or something. I'm going to go. But, um, hey, I do, let me ask another one, Logan, real quick, because I, because we're on coaches and I want to, I want to talk about, uh, I want to talk about J.K. And, and, was it a natural progression? Like, you guys have, like, pace of play down, um, points scored down. And this is counter kind of intuitive to what's going on in the NBA now, where everyone's trying to pick the pace up and get the scoring up in the 120s every game. And, but you guys have kind of take a step, or at least a fractional step in the opposite direction with that. But the byproduct is your defensive rating has really taken a leap, right? And so was this something that organically happened? Is it his coaching style? Was this a conversation about like us zinging when everyone's sagging? He came in and said that's what he's going to do, right?

And, you know, the Mavericks historically had never been known for their defense. And, you know, I talked to coaches over the years and looking at our personnel. They're like, we just don't have guys who can defend. And Jay Kill was like, no, you know, team, it's not about one-on-one defending anymore. It's about team defense, right? And keeping it simple so guys know how to make reads. And so it took us some time because you don't just walk in day one, particularly, you know, one of the other things that's changed is training camp and preseason has gotten short and dramatically.

I mean, you know, two a days, you guys used to have two days almost every day, right? Guys used to come in to get in shape. Yeah, for weeks. Now if you have three, two a days, the entire preseason, that's a lot. And you have four preseason games or something. And so, you know, it's just changed. And so it takes time to build the continuity and understanding of the system. And, you know, but yes, to answer your question, J-Kidd came in saying, okay, we're going to be a good defensive team.

And if you look at his history, when he went to Milwaukee, they went from like number 29 to number two or three defensively. You know, he helped the Lakers last year when he was at the Nets before Milwaukee, they were good defensively. And so, you know, that was one of his calling cards. and that was important to us. But, you know, to be a good defensive team, the underpinning that is the coach has to be a good communicator. And he's got to be able to get guys to buy in. And that really was a skill set that was interesting to me and most attractive to me. And like we said earlier, it doesn't happen overnight.

It takes time for guys to understand their roles, understand the system, buy in and realize that it benefits everybody. And, you know, when you start getting to the point where you trust each other, you start playing for each other. when you become a good defensive team. I want to take it back a little bit just for this question. I always remember you guys' 2011 title and, you know, how good you guys were. I mean, I got that guy back there. You see that? Oh, yeah, that thing right there.

Yeah, yeah, that thing right there. We got a, it was a little bittersweet because I loved watching your team play, Mark. But at the time, I was a high schooler and a high school Laker fan at that point. And I was, you guys for making us feel old. Thanks, Logan. Thanks for making us feel low. I always do this. I do every Monday and Thursday.

I'd give this, give Raja shit for that. But it's always, everything has always talked about the next year and the following year of, um, how you guys weren't as good that year? How did that experience, um,

how did that experience kind of help you and team building going forward? Was there a lesson learned there for you or did you, if you could do that over, how do you feel you would have, you would have went by, uh, would have went about it if you would. Yeah.

Well, obviously we broke up the championship team and a lot of, of people were upset. And so the thinking about it was it was a lockout year, right? And we had an older team. And honestly, we didn't, I didn't expect that we, I thought the whole season would be canceled. You know, I was on the committee, the labor committee, and every meeting we had with the players, every meeting we had with the owners was, you know, don't expect a season. Don't expect a season. Don't expect a season. And then all of a sudden, we get a call, you know, I remember getting an email like three in the morning, okay, we're having a season and it starts in like three weeks. And so here we were with an older team.

And it takes a lot longer when you're 32, 33 years old, 35, 38 years old, like some of our guys, um, to prepare for a season. And, you know, like, you know, I knew at some point we were going to have to rebuild. And the thought process was, well, we're only going to have half a season. It's going to be near impossible for an older team to turn it around. And, you know, everybody wanted a multi-year contract because, you know, everybody wanted to be rewarded for winning the championship. And so it was a really, really hard decision. But I just felt that it was going to be tough for us to win this year anyway simply because we were older.

And two, we were going to be much older with guys on, you know, three, four-year contracts. And it was going to be hard to rebound from that. And so we thought, okay, we can be in a position to have cap room. we'd be able to go out and get somebody to come and play, and that part didn't work out. Is that still a mantra to winning right now is Cap Space right now? Because I remember definitely during the 2010, 2011, it was this everybody, a race for Cap Space,

a race for Cap Space. We're going to shell everyone out. We're going to trade them all. We're going to drop everybody just so we can have a chance to get free agents. And me and Rod talk about this all the time. I think the NBA is about continuity and making sure you're playing with the right guys and guys that play together, right? where do you think we are right now in terms of getting and acquiring talent,

through free agency or by other means? That's a great question, Logan, because it's a hard question to answer. Because now with the supermax, you know, it's hard to have three players that are max players on the same team because your team better be perfect and no injuries because you're going to be in luxury tax. and you're only going to be able to have the mini mid-level, and you're pretty much going to be having to play with just minimum players. And on top of that, you're going to be writing a check for $100 million every year,

you know, in luxury tax just to try to keep that team together. And so, you know, you see it with, you know, some teams where their stars get hurt, and everything gets turned upside down. And, you know, so it really just depends on the circumstances. there's not one right road to take. And, you know, I think every few years, the young guys kind of go the opposite trend of their predecessors. You know, so where the older guys now are trying to pick where they want to go and, you know,

demand trades and everything, for the most part, I think younger guys are taking the opposite approach where, okay, I want to prove that I can win here and this is my team as opposed to, you know, just go jump in somewhere else. unless the situation is just really bad for them. That's really interesting. It was going to be my next question about the older guard that is, you know, LeBron and those guys,

the player empowerment and the leverage that they have in certain situations created by the last CBA, right? And it's interesting to hear you say that you think some of these younger guys are kind of going back in the other direction with that. But if they hadn't, and I've always asked this, I've always maintained, like was there going to have to be something done,

cubes, in your opinion? if it didn't change and it kept going in that direction, you know, eventually at the next CBA, just because, I mean, it's got to be impossible for you guys as ownership to really, you know, do a good job and keep things the way they've been with that type of leverage in the court of the player. Yeah, a lot of things have changed on the ownership side, too. Like when I first got in, there were just old dudes that inherited their team, you know, or they own some industrial company and they bought it, you know, wanted in a poker game, whatever.

And now, you know, and then I was like the rich guy coming in, and I was one of the exceptions. And that's why they didn't like me. Now, you know, you've got a couple of the bombers in the world, the Joe Size, that own the clippers and the nets that are individual owners and myself, but, you know, or Michael Jordan. But for the most part, it's venture capitalists and private equity groups are big groups of owners. And they've become a lot more sophisticated. And that sophistication, I think, has changed a lot the way in how things are done. Now, how that will impact the CBA going forward? I'm not quite sure because there's still uncertainties about, you know, where our revenue sources

are going to come from, right? I mean, it's no surprise, you know, it's nothing new to anybody that TV has its challenges, just on Shark Tank, right? You know, our audience is half the size that it was six, seven years ago on Friday nights on ABC. And we're still one of the top performing shows, you know, in all the television. television, Friday nights on ABC. And so where, you know, since all these things are driven by, you know, what the future of revenues are and where they're going to come from, there's still

a lot of uncertainty. So it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Now, you, I don't know if you get credit enough for this, Mark, but, you know, you could say, you know, you might have been like the Godfather streaming, right? You know, you could probably, you could probably say that. People forget. Yeah, right from beginning. No, there was no streaming. People know you was outside. Yeah.

People know you were outside. But my question to you is now streaming is it, we didn't even know what streaming was when you sold broadcast.com. We didn't even scratch the surface of even knowing what it could be. Now we are on the other side of that, right? And you guys have, the league has a TV deal and it's said in 2025 to expire. Right. And it's in this climate where you, it's not just traditional TV sources that are buying for

your attention. There are the NBC's, the ABCs, and CBS is all trying, are in that mode, but they're also the Amazon's, right? There are the apples. There are all these things. Netflix, and probably things we don't even know for a couple more years that might come into play, right? How do you, how do you in the league kind of see what's out there and how do you use that? I guess my question is, how is streaming going to play a part in the expansion of the internet going to play a part into the next television deal? I mean, everything.

I mean, you know, it may not be a traditional television deal. We just don't know, you know, because a big issue is there's so much competition among the streamers, not, you know, and all the traditional networks, ABC, CBS, MC are part of bigger streaming groups or own their own or started their own, that there's a lot of competitive issues within streaming. And so it's expensive for Netflix to keep on coming out with all these shows all the time. time, right? They spent $20 billion or more every year just on content because, you know, we've all been in that situation. We go to Netflix and say, what's on? And they're like, shit, I don't see anything. I want to watch. What the fuck? Right? And then we get pissed.

And then you go over to Hulu, maybe, you go, well, okay, there's one thing. This ain't it. You know, and then you bounce around. And so recreating, replenishing content, original content, is hard. And we're past the days where you could just go buy old TV shows. right? Okay, we'll get Seinfeld and we'll get whatever and put it on. That doesn't work either. And so the question, and then you've got traditional television where the NFL first and then the NBA is keeping traditional television alive. You know, if NFL, you know, if traditional television loses the NFL in particular, they're toast, you know, because that's why I'm still here. Yeah, right? Right. You know, and so watching NBA and watching the NFL and, you know,

serves at baseball and hockey and even soccer, that keeps people keeping their subscriptions. And some other shows, Shark Tank, yeah, you know. Friday night on ABC, yeah, 8 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Central. I think we got a great episode this week. But the bigger point is, you know, we've got to keep on reinventing. So on one hand, we're really good for streamers because we're always new content. I'll tell you a quick story. Like when I first got into the NBA and NBC had the contract, NBC was telling David Stern

that they wanted fewer games on TV because they felt like if there were fewer games, it'd be scarcer and people would be more excited to watch. And I was like, no, that's ridiculous. Look at cable. You know, in 2001 or whatever it was, cable was really taking off. And, you know, people would watch episodes, you know, repeats of Seinfeld and other shows over and over, line order, over and over again. And Seinfeld was getting like a million dollars an episode.

And I'm like, David, look, it's cheaper for them to buy a game from us to put on TV than it is to buy a replay episode of some old TV show. That's the way we got to sell it. We want more on television, not less. And that led to them changing some of the negotiations and getting a bigger TV contract, not as big as the 2010, but bigger. And so it's the same type of situation now. It's so expensive for Netflix to create a new show that it's cheaper for them or Amazon or Hulu or whoever

to do a deal with the NBA, maybe not the NFL, but the NBA, the NHL, Major League Baseball, because we're always new content. So that moment when, you know, let's just say, you know, Netflix says they won't, but let's pretend that they do an NBA deal, right? During the NBA season, there's always something new on. Now, if you're not an NBA fan, you may not care. But for sports fans, particularly since it's already part of your package, if there's nothing else on, it's almost like the old days of television.

I'll watch the game because there's nothing else on, right? And so I think because we're always new content and because the cost per game, is cheaper than it is to create a new TV show or movie. And remember, there's a lot of risk because a lot of those shows fail miserably, even on Netflix and Hulu or whatever, that I think we make good economic sense for an investment from those streamers. Well, how do you use that as a, how are you using right now? The NFL is a kind of a case study for the new streaming ones right now, right?

Because you guys have a little time before yours. And we always know that Amazon is, you know, signed to deal with the NFL. So how do you use that, what they're going through is something like, oh, this is an educational purpose. Oh, okay, I did see what they could do and I could do. Do you guys do that at all? Yeah, of course. You know, wherever the money is, we want to see how it's being used and hasn't worked. And Amazon's not dumb. They're not, you know, they're not spending a billion dollars or more to lose money, you know, because they went back and got more. They didn't go back and cut it back. They went back and got more. And so, and now they have something exclusive. And so, yeah, that definitely helps us because Amazon can expand their sports and other people,

you know, other streamers can copy them. And it also puts more pressure on traditional TV to pay more because they know the consequences that they don't have us in the NFL, et cetera. That shit is interesting, man, and slightly above my pay grade. Yeah, it's, you know, it's gamifying everything. I mean, you know, it's game strategy, you know, what happens this? You know, it's like, if they go to the zone, what do we do? You know what I took from that, though, like when he was talking about helping,

helping David Stern with that, with that sticky situation and lobbying for more games. He should have not been finding your ass that much. Yeah, I didn't care. He should have been fucking thankful. David, may you rest in peace. He used to always tell me, you used to go, I made your ass. I made you, right? If I hadn't find you all those times, nobody would know who you were.

And he's right. He's 100% right. Did you know that like, how did you approach fines? When you knew that you were going to get fined, did you just like... It was free marketing, right? So not only was it good brandy for me, but it helped change the game. There's a lot of shit that I got fined about that led to changes across the board in the NBA. Yeah, okay, I got a question of as it pertains to your basketball team, where we are in the season.

We talked about this last episode. It's a weird time, especially for, you know, Logan and I, when you're sitting around and you're coming out of that All-Star break, 20 or so games left. We have storylines now, but right before that, there wasn't a whole lot of stuff going on. Like, as a team, you know,

some of these teams are in lulls. What is, what is kind of this time of year mean for you guys? Are we talking about, like, trying to get it going into the playoffs? Are we, you know,

where are we at? Are we in neutral right now? Or do you believe in playing good basketball leading up to it? Right. Yeah, we're competing for spots, right? You know, because you've got,

it's not the traditional Western powerhouses that are doing their thing, right? You've got the Phoenix went to the finals last year, but, you know, who knows what happens with Chris Paul? There's lots of uncertainties. You know, the warriors have struggled some. And then you've got the grizzlies who are crushing it. You know, we're playing well. The T. Wolves are a lot better. You know, if you saw Yokic last night, I mean, just insane. I've never seen anything like that. I mean, you know, I remember watching Dirk scored 29 points against Utah one time in a quarter, right? And Yokh just took over. And so, you know, we have to establish ourselves further. We have to work on the things we need to work on.

You know, our defense is better. But instead, you know, we went through a streak where I don't know how many games it was, 13, 14, and whatever it was, we held teams under 100 points. We haven't held them under 100 points in a few games now. right? And so we've got to give back to defense first as opposed to thinking, you know, that we can just turn it on in the fourth quarter. And we've been good at that, right? And it's won us games, but you don't want to be in that position where you have to turn it on in the fourth quarter to hold teams to win a game. So, you know, teams go through a learning curve. I mean, you've been on teams that way where you try to establish your identity. And your identity is only established relative to the teams you beat. You know, it's easy to establish identities again. a bad team. It's hard to sustain it against good teams. And so, you know, we've had a decent run. We've played better against good teams than we have against bad teams, but a really

rough patch of our schedule starting tonight with Utah's coming up. You know, we're like a game behind Utah, but only a game in a half or a game in front of Denver. And so every game that we play is for something. So that'll really help us define our identity. So playing it out through the playoffs. And plus now, you know, with the play-in, that also puts more pressure on because you could have said before, okay, I don't have home court advantage, five, six, seven, eight. We don't really care who we play. But you don't want to be in the play-in, so every game matters a whole lot more. Mark, I have a question for you. A couple rapid fire ones where we get you out of here. What was the, what is the best win of your tenure as a owner or best, best win, best moment?

And then last one after that, what is the worst, where the move where you're just like, damn, I could have had that person or damn, I should have like, damn it. What is that? The best moment was game six against Miami, that moment when there was 30 seconds left and I realized we were champs, you know? And you just can't top that. I ran, I was there at the game. Because his brother-in-law is a really good friend of mine. Yeah.

And he doesn't, Mark probably don't remember it because he was in the state of you, you at the time. But I saw him right after that, right, for a brief second. And I don't even think he recognized me how high this dude was on what had just happened. Yeah, I was in another world, right? I was looking for my family. I was looking for everybody, you know, yeah, it was insane. And the worst moment was game three against Miami in 2006. And I'll never forget, we were up 14 in the third quarter. We're already leading two-oh. And we're up 14, and I'm thinking, we might sweep these motherfuckers. That exact moment, Udana's Haslin, makes a steal, right? Then the next possession, we have a turnover. And there's a foul where

Shaquille just barrels over Eric Dampeer, barrels him over. And Shaq starts running the other way thinking it's a foul. And they call the foul on damp. peer. And then the next play, they give, you know, Dwayne Wade 16 free throws and it all went downhill from there. And so that one moment right there was the worst moment. What was it like partying in Miami with Deshawn Stevenson and all the homies down there in Miami after the, how was that? Not a lot I can say. It was great. I'll tell you one quick story, though. You know, I changed my credit card's out every now and then, right? And so I'd recently changed out my black card. And they came up to us, and they were like, we've got this $140,000 bottle of champagne. And Dirk's like, yes. So that's not the

good part. The good part is, you know, Dirk's like, where's the champagne? Where's the champagne? And I'm like, let me check. And so the waitress or whatever manager comes up and goes, Mr. Cuban, and I'm already torched, right? I can barely talk. And so it turns out my card had been declined. because it was a new card, and I hadn't, you know, turned it on yet and all that shit. And so I had to go back into the manager's office of Live in Miami and get on the phone. And the manager at American Express is, we can't approve it to. I'm like, did you watch TV today? Did you see the NBA finals?

Did you see the guy, you know, that did the interview at the other? That's me. Go back and do it. Yeah, that's me. Like, please, you can't do this to me. please. And so they got to a high enough up where they were like, okay, yeah, we can tell it to you. And so they approved my card and partied on. Word. That's awesome. But most important question, because I'm looking, I'm looking in office. When are you going

just retro to 69 Robin Jersey? When you just go put it out? What's the, what's going on? Why can't we just get that for the streets? Just like, just for the summer, man. We need a day parties. What's up? We, Stern said he wasn't allowed to use that. That's the only one in existence. So we probably need to reissue it somehow now that David, you know, isn't in charge. But the NBA would probably shoot that down too. But that jersey would, that jersey would sell for sure. That jersey would sell. The only one in existence. You heard that logo. Man, man. Thanks so much, man, for coming on. Before we get out here, I know you got a lot of companies and stuff. We could see Mark Cuban on Shark Tank at Friday night as an ABC. What else you want to plug?

We'll get out of here. What else? What else you got? Oh, I got a new company called costplusdrugs.com. We're just turning upside down pricing on generic drugs to start. So if you have a generic medication right now and eventually we'll do branded as well, and you're just paying too much or it's really changing your life because you have to make a choice between medication or rationing or, you know, paying your bills, go to cost plus drugs and see what we have there. Costplusrugs.com. Literally, we buy it at the cheapest prices we can find it at.

We mark it up 15%. That's it. That's our markup on everything. We show you our cost. we charge you a $3 handling fee even $5 for shipping and that's it. And we're able to cut costs on most people's drugs by 40, 50, 80, 90 percent. And it's just changing people's lives. So that's something I'm really proud of.

And we just launched to the public on January 19th. So we haven't been out there very long at all. And there you go. That has been our Mavs Paloza edition. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Make sure you check us out every Monday's and Thursday. days, but in the meantime, make sure you check out

Upside High with Jonathan Charks. Make sure you check out the void! Fall on the void with KOC! Make sure you check out the answer with Sirius O'Hee and Chris Ryan. Make sure you check out group chat. What's time to keep the propaganda going, Raj. Make sure you check out R2C2

with who, Roger Bell. I hate this part. I really hate this part. Filetio legend, the Crescite clown Cici Sabathia. We're going to keep the propaganda going here, Mark. You got to, man. You can sell the propaganda, right? We're going to propagate.

We're going going, Mark. Make sure you check out Black Girl's song, but with who

Roger Bell. That would be the home girl. You guys know her, Danielle Smith. What is she? What is she,

sir? What is she, sir? What, that's the town legend? She's a town legend. We're in the motherfucking building. We will see you guys

next episode. Holler.