Mark Cuban was fined $600K by the NBA for comments he made during a podcast about the team he owns – the Dallas Mavericks – “tanking” for the rest of season. The NBA said Cuban’s remarks were detrimental to the league.
The outspoken team owner told Julius Erving on the House Call with Dr. J podcast that it might be best if the Mavericks lost for the remainder of the season, Larry Brown Sports reported.
The NBA confirmed the fine was for his comments made during the podcast that was posted on Feb. 18.
“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 on the podcast, per Larry Brown Sports.
“Adam [Silver, the NBA commissioner] 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,” Cuban reportedly said. “This was, like, a year-and-a-half 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.”
The hefty fine comes on the heels of an expose by Sports Illustrated which alleged crude sexual harassment within the Mavericks workplace.
Central to the accusations in the SI piece was former Mavericks president and CEO Terdema Ussery who who had a reputation as a “serial sexual harasser of women.”
TMZ reported that the team also came under fire when a former writer for the Mavericks website was able to keep his job despite facing multiple harassment claims.
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