2021-2022 MAVS NEWS: 4th in West | WCF loss [ARCHIVED]

[F Gump]

This is the part I don't understand. If I understand the scope of the President Of Basketball Operations job, it is literally his job to decide who is involved in the analytics department. How in the hell does Nico think that claiming ignorance about Bob's status does anything but undermine the perception of his authority within the organization?

People have been talking about how Mark Cuban is basically the defacto GM and that no new exec will have any actual power and here we are with our new exec basically saying "idk lol" about the status of an employee who should be directly under his purview. Amateur hour.

Weird interview, awful questions.

It is indeed Nico's job to be the boss. He's been made the Mavs' GM, with all the authority that should entail. As he has made clear in multiple interviews, he would never have agreed to the job without that setup.

I have no doubt Bob's future employment with the Mavs (if any) will be decided by Nico, if and when Nico feels like messing with it. As you note, Bob's potential role is in the analytics department, and those people report to Nico-- and as Nico noted in the interview, he gets their input constantly. He apparently feels he has more important things on his plate at the moment than figuring out whether he needs to add Bob's voice to that department. Whether Bob's contract with the Mavs is not yet ended, or has already run out, is only a minor detail to him apparently, and he has more important things to do than decide whether Bob has a place in Nico's Mavs. He keeps saying this, and no one likes what he says, so the weird questions that go nowhere are the result.

Nico answers to Cuban, because (as he keeps saying) "everyone has a boss." But Nico was given the job of GM, with all the authority that comes with it, as well as the accountability required to get it right. In the past, Cuban was the GM, that hired and fired and took the input and made the decisions. Cuban has handed those reins to Nico.

It's possible Cuban will turn into a control freak again at some point, but for now, it's a different process. All these guys report to Nico.