MAVS NEWS:

[omahen]

I just sort of wish Cuban would quietly sit in the background.   His changing statements are confusing.   He is a part of the dysfunction and appears to be jumping back into the picture.

https://x.com/KevinGraySports/status/196...2779245053

Cuban and his statements related to the sale are just weird. He is still claiming that NBA refused a contract where he would have control of the basketball operation, which doesn't seem logical at all. Point is, a role of "person in charge of basketball operation" is not of interest of the league at all. The only relevant role for the league is the team Governor. According to the contract, Dumont was (is) the governor. He is the official team representative and the one with the final say. It doesn't seem league cares at all who is employed on positions below the Governor. Who is president, GM, or whatever other title. It just doesn't sound logical that the league would prevent Cuban to have any of those titles, as that is for the Governor to decide. But league could be against that some other "title" would represent the team towards the league instead of the Governor. If Cuban wanted that, than I would not be surprised that the league was against it. I would be surprised though, that Cuban wouldn't know that and even if he did know, that he wouldn't push for an official position in team hierarchy (like president, GM or whatever), if he wanted control of the basketball operations. Is it really possible that he would be so naive to think that verbal agreement is giving him all these powers?

Jeanie Buss sold the majority share but she remained in position of the team Governor, which is also in the contract, according to several sources. I would assume the majority owner probably has ways to replace her, if he would think she is not doing a good job, but until he does replace her, she will be the one making decisions and representing Lakers.

It also seems weird that all Mavs people "went into hiding" while Cuban is rather aggresively present in the media, mostly saying positive things about Mavs - the only excemption are some negative statements against Nico. I think this is not by chance, I think this is Mavs PR plan. Part of plan how to get fans back. Nico or Dumont would probably only receive negative reactions from most of fan base, no matter what they would say. Dumont could likely win (most) fans back by firing Nico, but it looks like this is not on the menu. And I really wonder why not. 

Part of me thinks, that actually all three (Nico, Cuban and Dumont) were in agreement to trade Luka, were aware of negative reactions that will follow and that Cuban actually is much more involved in basketball decisions. They would really have to be ignorant to not expect the reactions as they were. That is why I think Nico is taking most of the heat, Dumont basically went into hiding (because he also holds responsibility for approving the deal) and Cuban is playing the role "I didn't know what they will do" to serve as a safety net. If things won't go well, Nico will be eventually fired and Cuban will publicly step up in basketball operations while Dumont will be "cleared" with "he didn't know what he was doing and Nico took advantage of his inexperience" story. Perhaps it is just my conspiracy theory, but it does clear some things that are not very logical. 

On the other hand, I think it could also be possible that Nico and Dumont are not very capable persons in their positions and they went into hiding, while Cubes just enjoys the spotlight.