Most Dallas Mavericks fans are still upset about the team's ill-advised trade last month that sent superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for All-Star forward Anthony Davis.
And apparently so is former Mavericks majority owner Mark Cuban, who's now a minority owner of the team.
At the time of the trade, Cuban let it be known to anyone who would listen that he was not happy with the team trading away its franchise player, the seemingly shady manner in which the deal went down, and the return for the Mavericks.
"If the Mavs are going to trade Luka, that's one thing," Cuban told WFAA in Dallas after the trade. "Just get a better deal. No disrespect to Anthony Davis, but I still firmly believe if we had gotten four unprotected No. 1s and Anthony Davis and Max Christie, this would be a different conversation."
Cuban believes the Mavericks got a raw deal in the Doncic-Davis swap - a move that many fans have boisterously stated on social media wouldn't have happened if Cuban was still the majority owner.
Instead, Cuban, like everyone else, had to sit idly by as the Adelson family, the group Cuban sold his majority ownership shares to, and general manager Nico Harrison confidently executed one of the most heavily criticized NBA trades of all time.
As fired up as Mavericks fans were in their opposition to the trade, their antipathy likely kicked into overdrive on Thursday night after hearing what Cuban admitted about the details of the sale between himself and the Adelson family.
"Actually, I fully expected to run basketball," Cuban commented on one unruly fan's Facebook page in response to a call to run him out of town. "The NBA wouldn't let me put it in the contract. They took it out. Just like they won't let the Celtics put it in. I thought they would stick to their word because they didn't know the first thing about running a team. Someone obviously changed their mind."
While Cuban likely can't say with 100% certainty he wouldn't have traded Doncic, there's a strong chance based on what he stated just a few days ago during an appearance on the "Your Mom's House" podcast that Doncic would still be in Dallas had he still been in charge.
"If I had any influence, the trade wouldn't happen," Cuban said. "I was just as dumbfounded as everybody else. After I sold the Mavericks, the new owner Patrick Dumont decided that, ‘OK, in Nico we trust.' So, here we are."
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This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 2:57 PM.
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