Without the ‘face of the franchise,’ change is coming for the Dallas Mavericks

No matter what happens with the rest of these NBA Finals, the most surprising scene of these entire playoffs will forever be the celebration of the Western Conference Finals on the floor in Minneapolis.

Watching TNT’s Ernie Johnson conduct the trophy presentation for the Dallas Mavericks, and the first person he interviewed is Patrick Dumont, who was holding the piece of hardware normally cradled by Mark Cuban.

This would be like the Dallas Cowboys winning the Super Bowl and the Lombardi Trophy is handed to not Jerry Jones, or any member of his family, but rather a construction company magnate who owns America’s Team and lives in London and New York City.

(Sorry, Jerry isn’t selling the Dallas Cowboys but Cuban sold the Dallas Mavericks, so maybe that unexpected turn of life is the sliver of a prayer a Cowboys fan needs to “just keep going”).

Johnson went to the Governor of the Mavericks, Dumont. The difference was so striking, because Cuban loves any microphone whereas Dumont looked like he wanted to retreat to Mars.

It was another sign we are in the twilight of Cuban’s role as the face of the Mavericks. Whatever you think of his personality, basketball decisions and strident political views, he was ultimately the best thing that ever did happen to what had previously been one of the worst sports franchises in North America.

Before Cuban (and Dirk Nowitzki), the Mavericks were the joke that wasn’t funny. His 20-plus years were the best in the history of a franchise that started in 1980; maybe because the previous regimes set the bar so low, Cuban reset the standard for the franchise.

In Nov. of 2023, Cuban sold the controlling interest of the Mavericks to the Las Vegas Sands Corp. for a reported $3.5 billion. Part of the agreement was that Cuban would retain shares in the franchise and have full control of basketball operations.

Cuban reportedly has 27 percent ownership of the Mavericks. “Full control of basketball operations” is 51 percent.

Although Cuban was on the court with the players and members of the organization to celebrate their win over the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals, he was never interviewed. His seats remain the same, and he’s with the team in Boston in the NBA Finals.

What we should expect is that over the next year or two or three is Cuban’s role with the Mavericks will decrease with each passing season, and the people who have “full control of basketball operations” are GM Nico Harrison with Dumont.

This doesn’t mean that Dumont and the Las Vegas Sands will run the Mavericks into the Trinity River. This does not mean Dumont and his mother-in-law, Las Vegas Sands primary owner Miriam Adelson, plan to move the Mavericks from Texas to The Strip (they won’t, and the NBA wouldn’t allow it).

It does mean that the team will be run a bit more like the business than it was; one of the many observations/criticisms of Cuban’s tenure as primary owner was that the leadership was a tad unpredictable, and loose.

That leadership style is what ultimately got the Mavericks in trouble when in February of 2018 Sports Illustrated published a long report containing allegations of a “hostile work environment—ranging from sexual harassment to domestic violence” within the organization.

The Mavericks were known as a bit of a frat house; the hiring of Cynt Marshall by Cuban as the team’s president did change that part of the work environment.

Cuban had so many other interests and projects going that the part of the Mavericks that commanded his full attention was the part that he loves, the basketball.

How this change in ownership will ultimately change the team we won’t know for at least a year or two. When your favorite team is owned and operated by people who fly in on a private jet and take off shortly after the game ends, chances are good the franchise is a line item on a spreadsheet rather than a passion.

The billionaire types who buy these franchises often struggle grasping that you can’t bully your way to a winner, and more money. That success is often the Milwaukee Bucks trading the rights to Dirk Nowitzki to your team. Or the Atlanta Hawks trading Luka Doncic to your team in exchange for Trae Young and draft picks.

Cuban wasn’t always right, and he plenty of missed layups. Famously he let Steve Nash and Jalen Brunson leave for nothing in return, and he badly misread the NBA landscape after the league lockout in 2011.

Cuban was loyal to Dallas, and to Texas. No one could ever question his love of basketball, and the NBA. Both the Mavericks and the NBA benefited from his sometimes controversial run as the primary owner.

Mavericks coach Jason Kidd said a few days before the start of the NBA Finals that the ownership change has had zero effect on his day-to-day job. Dumont approved contract extensions for both Kidd and GM Nico Harrison this spring.

Other changes are coming, and it’s the easiest of bets to say the Mavericks won’t look like they once did under Mark Cuban, because how could they?