As an investigation continues into years of alleged workplace misconduct with the Dallas Mavericks, more disturbing details of overlooked deviant behavior were uncovered over the weekend.
Brandon George and Eddie Defko of the Dallas Morning News spoke with seven current and former Mavericks employees who recalled some disturbing behavior by former Mavs senior account executive Chris Hyde, whose perverse behavior at work supposedly earned him the nickname “Pants DJ.”
According to the anonymous co-workers, Hyde used to openly look at pornographic images while at work on his cell phone or computer and touch himself below the waist. Hyde was apparently warned about the behavior by Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in 2008, but he only stopped for several months. He was not fired until 2014.
One former Mavs employee told the Dallas Morning News that Hyde brought his own external hard drive into work so he could watch porn without using the team’s network. A woman who used to sit at a cubicle close to Hyde’s said Hyde got her attention multiple times over the course of three years so she could see that he was viewing pornography on his computer.
In one incident that took place in 2011, Hyde allegedly dropped a used condom on the floor outside a workplace bathroom.
Three former employees said they spotted a used condom on the office floor shortly after Hyde walked out of a bathroom near the front of the Mavs’ sales office after lunch in early 2011. One of the employees said he had seen the condom fall from Hyde’s pants leg as he was walking.
Two of the co-workers said they had witnessed Buddy Pittman, the Mavericks vice president of human resources, pick up the used condom with a paper towel before disposing of it.
Cuban was alerted about the condom incident, two sources said, but Hyde kept his job for three more years.
Sources told the Dallas Morning News that Hyde’s firing in 2014 was not related to his inappropriate behavior. He was the team’s top salesman in ticket sales for several years, and his former co-workers said Hyde often bragged about all the money he was making.
Hyde’s name was not mentioned in Sports Illustrated’s bombshell report from earlier in the year. The report detailed some disturbing domestic violence incidents involving a former Mavs writer, who also initially kept his job. Cuban later admitted he made a “horrible mistake” by not firing the writer, though he did not comment on the allegations against Hyde.
