About five minutes into a pregame conversation with Mark Cuban last night, a man appeared near the Garden court wearing a T-shirt that sent the Dallas Mavericks owner into laughter.
It read: “Free Mark Cuban.”
“He’s an old rugby buddy of mine,” Cuban said.
The shirt is from an era when the maverick Maverick was regularly fined by the NBA for statements that, while utterly sensible, rocked the league’s boat. He didn’t like a lot of what was happening in the NBA at the turn of this century, and he wasn’t afraid to share those thoughts.
Now, at the wisened age of 51, Cuban more than once smiles at a question and says, “I don’t want to get fined.” From all private accounts, he is still pushing the envelope behind the NBA’s doors, but more of Mark Cuban lives off the record these days.
“When I got into the Mavs, I was like other young people in that situation,” he said as his team warmed up behind him. “I just wanted to take over the world. But you can only bang your head for so long before you realize you’re just leaving a mark on your head.”
He has waged a campaign to overhaul the league’s officiating system, and he was scouting referees’ tendencies long before disgraced former NBA official Tim Donaghy made such charges. Cuban is well aware that the NBA is terribly sensitive to this subject now, and he refuses to get deeply into the issue.
Is he satisfied with where things stand now with officiating?
“No. . . . And that’s all I’m going to say about that,” Cuban said.
Then a grin creased his face and he added, “I defer to Tommy Heinsohn.”
Point taken.
Mark Cuban will have several points to make in ownership meetings as the league and its players negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, and it’s a lead-pipe cinch he will not leave a room with any opinions still in his pocket.
But he likes the fact that teams are seeing things more his way, even if it’s been out of financial necessity.
“We’re down with the economy, but I think teams are doing all the right things to really work hard to make fans happy,” he said. “So there’s a silver lining in the bad economy for everybody. I think teams are getting a lot more innovative. They’re being a lot more responsive to the fans. Ticket prices are coming down. I think that’s great for everybody.”
Along those lines, Cuban believes the change atop the Celtics [team stats] several years ago has been a positive.
“The ownership is just night and day,” he said. “Wyc (Grousbeck, co-owner) cares about winning and it shows. He cares about fans and it shows. He’s emotional like I am. The only difference is he wears a suit, and I’m going to try to convince him to do otherwise. He’s incredibly active in the league. People trust him. He represents Boston very well. And he’s smart. Sometimes he’s a little bit middle of the road - too middle of the road for my taste in terms of league meetings. But he’s involved, and making the Celtics successful is his mission in life. And making the NBA successful is part and parcel to that.”
Mark Cuban seems to spend a great deal of time with “success,” finding and developing new avenues and driving down them with the top down and the radio blaring. Thus, we cannot leave him without getting a little advice for the class of ’10.
“If I was kid coming out of college, I’d be into genetics and DNA and technology related to that,” Cuban said. “I think there are going to be businesses built around all that. I think that’s going to be the hot area.”
There is no room to doubt a man who moves within his own tropical zone.
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