The NBA announced on Wednesday that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been fined $600,000 for some recent comments he made about tanking.
The hefty fine is a result of what the NBA has determined were public statements that are detrimental to the league.
— Bobby Marks (@BobbyMarks42) February 21, 2018
In a recent appearance on “The House Call with Dr. J” podcast, Cuban said that he told his team it would be best if they lose for the remainder of the 2017-2018 season.
“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, as transcribed by ESPN.com. “Adam [Silver] 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. 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.”
This is turning into an extremely rough week for Cuban and the Mavericks. In addition to the $600,000 fine, a bombshell SI report on Tuesday detailed how the Mavs have harbored an uncomfortable and inappropriate workplace for two decades, including allowing a writer to continue to work for them after he was involved in two separate domestic violence incidents. Cuban took the blame on Wednesday for the situation getting to this point, but his excuse for not firing the writer sooner was questionable at best.
