After being the owner of the Dallas Mavericks from 2000 to 2023, Mark Cuban sold his majority position to the Adelson family for multiple billion dollars, remaining only as a minority holder. This in turn freed him up to talk much more liberally about all things Mavericks, and all things NBA. And it is not as if he was ever reticent to begin with.
In an appearance on the DLLS Sports Show, Cuban – in typically forthcoming fashion – vented his spleen on multiple topics. In addition to praising Luka Doncic as a person while also wishing him the worst as a player, Cuban reflected on the 2006 NBA Finals – and he is still angry.
Mavericks’ 2006 Heartbreak
The Mavericks lost that Finals series to the Miami Heat by a score of four games to two, but not before they had taken a 2-0 lead. And the conspiracy that Cuban is here fuelling holds that the Heat were only able to turn the series around because the NBA and/or its referees wanted them to.
The theory goes that the NBA purposely inflated the Heat’s free throw numbers in an attempt to even the score. Certainly, the whistles started to come out. Over the final four games of the series, the Heat shot a colossal 156 free throws, for an average of 39 per game, and Dwyane Wade in particular was the major beneficiary. Wade set an NBA Finals six-game series record for free throw attempts, with 97, and after averaging 9.3 free throw attempts through his first 19 games of the 2006 playoffs, that number almost double in his last four Finals games.
Cuban knows of the conspiracy as well as anyone. And it seems he believes it.
âWe hurt in 2006 after it was stolen from us, right?”, he said. âAnd Iâll take that to my grave that it was stolen from us.â
In a low-key sassy response, Wade liked an Instagram post that had shared Cuban’s comments. In a world full of talking heads, let the like button do your talking.
Lingering Conspiracy, But Not Proven
The same interview saw Cuban talk about his decision to sell his majority position with the Mavericks. Although he maintains he does not regret the sale in general, he does have some regret over how it all transpired, and the closed nature of the proceedings. And he maintained once again that, were he still the majority owner, the Doncic trade would never have happened.
This last part seems likely to be true, and even if it was not, it is the easiest PR victory imaginable to claim it. The Mavericks franchise is still dealing with the fall-out from the move, and will be for some years, even with the gift of Cooper Flagg softening the blow.
Openness, or at least a desire to speak out against perceived injustices faced by his team, was part of Cuban’s brand as owner. So outspoken was he when he felt things were unjust against his Mavericks that his littany of fines became a big part of his legacy. And of course, if the conspiracy theory has any truth to it – a causative link, rather than a mere correlation – there is no greater injustice imaginable. Cuban offered no new evidence of any causation, but he also no longer has to. Minds are made up, none more so than his.
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