Roberts/NYT: Dallas Followed Cuban's Lead in Losing Its Cool

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June 21, 2006
Sports of The Times
Dallas Followed Cuban's Lead in Losing Its Cool

By SELENA ROBERTS
DALLAS

IF David Stern had been slipped a spoonful of truth serum into the tonic water of his soul, he would have been forced to reveal his pet star of the N.B.A. finals, his chosen phenom to shoo Michael Jordan’s ghost from the league, his preferred outreach vehicle to Middle America.

Mark Cuban knows all, so he believed the icon of Stern’s vision was Dwyane Wade. He was the humble Heat star with a drama gene, a player who turned pool shark in using every angle off the glass, who soothed Shaq’s Hollywood breakup with Kobe, who wove the magic carpet for Miami’s ride to a le last night, who proved more than a reasonable facsimile to Jordan.

“The comparisons are flattering, but I stay away from them because there will never be another Jordan,” said Wade, who scored 36 points in Game 6. “I don’t want to say I put the team on my back. We did it together.”

Wade, the smooth elixir for the National Basketball Association. Cuban, the su ious mind who watched as his Mavericks’ homecoming banner end up draped around the interlopers at American Airlines Center after the Heat won Game 6, 95-92.

The casting was all wrong, though. Cuban often mistakes his dot.com wealth for world wide self-righteousness. If he would have paused from his various profane rants over his perception of Heat bias — which cost him a $250,000 league fine yesterday — Cuban would have discovered he was the saboteur of his team’s poise as well as his own status as Stern’s secret love.

It’s true: Cuban had Stern at “ o.” Although Shaquille O’Neal received his lifetime achievement reward for being shoved to the curb in Los Angeles and Pat Riley finally reclaimed his slicked-back coaching sheen, Cuban’s antics during the finals undermined Stern’s plan to develop the Mavericks’ owner into a league darling, too.

Cuban is a niche marketing hope for a league that has lost suburban fans who feel alienated by players they find too urban, hip-hop and, well, too unlike them.

Cuban is a demographic treasure: a white, 40-something male and a self-made billionaire who is acting out a middle-aged guy’s fantasy by sitting behind the bench of his own sports franchise.

He is the dreamboat of techies, too, with the haircut of a band geek and the wardrobe of a couch fan. And yet, he is cool enough to mingle with George Clooney at the Oscars. He is wired enough to court Dan Rather for his television network; and he is so popular, he landed on the stage as a guest of David Letterman’s.

Cuban is good for the league. But as the ultimate authority of the Mavericks, Cuban usurped his team’s early momentum through the finals with the equivalence of a bad parental model.

He cursed the ref; his team cursed the refs. He questioned calls; his coach questioned calls. Even though Cuban admitted last night that he had “an obligation to the league and I wasn’t able to get the job done,” he didn’t think of himself as a distraction.

“No, everyone has been saying that for how long?” he said.

But listen to the Cuban parroting from Jerry Stackhouse as he explained yesterday how “you want the other team to beat you with their best shot and not be given the benefit of the doubt.”

Pay attention to the mimicry as Dallas Coach Avery Johnson crushed the officials to dust on Saturday. See Dirk Nowitzki forget to channel his favorite calming song — a ditty by the German pop star David Hasselhoff, of all Baywatch babes — when he went Cuban-esque by roughing up a stationary bike after Game 5 in Miami. At some point, self-control becomes more of an issue when everything is on the line.

“I just think that if you’re a player on a team and everything around you is about something else, some complaint about how terrible this is or that is, I would think it would ultimately get to the players,” Commissioner Stern said last night. “It’s always a concern to me and I don’t think it’s fair to the game.”

It was a disservice to Dallas in the end. The Mavs reflected their owner’s conduct code to the point of self-destruction, spending their pregame energy obsessing over officiating slights instead of lost leads. And there were plenty, including a 14-point, first-half advantage in Game 6.

“It’s the nature of the playoffs,” Riley said of the Mavs’ behavior. “It creates a lot of tension. It’s like blowing up a balloon. You blow it up, you blow it up, you blow it up. You just don’t want it to pop.”

It popped on the Mavs. With his team ahead in the series by 2-0, Cuban was on a high, leading a parade of over-exuberance before the excessive whining set in.

“It was very motivating,” Wade said, adding. “We took it from there, making history, winning four games in a row.”

How did Dallas experience such a rapid descent? Riley made adjustments and Wade made money shots. The Mavs made excuses. Accountability is not Cuban’s strength, though.

“He is very smart, he has to take credit and should be given credit for putting together a great team and giving his fans the entertainment experience in that building, which is terrific,” Stern told the San Francisco radio station KNBR yesterday. “But at times, I think he loses control and that is not healthy for either him or the game.”

His spiral in the finals was Stern-aided. For years, Stern has indulged Cuban as the N.B.A.’s interactive marquee owner. From his bench-side seat, Cuban is allowed to berate officials and opposing players. On his Web Site, he is a blog bully the league generally ignores.

Any fines have been passive punishment when no amount can scratch Cuban’s wealth, estimated at nearly $2 billion. He knows good business. He once sold his Broadcast.com to Yahoo for around $6 billion as an Internet boy wizard.

Cuban’s genius isn’t unconditional, though. If Cuban had only known that, yes, Wade was the levitating wonder on the floor and the deserving M.V.P., but he was Stern’s chosen outreach star.

E-mail: [email protected]

[GoSpurs21]

like Joe Morgan said on Dan Patricks radio show today, its ok for Mark to stick up for his team, but he has a greater responsibility to the league and the game of basketball. I just dont understand why dallas fans dont see that if mavs win because Mark bullies his way around how it doesnt make the league more like the WWE. I guess dallas doesnt want to earn the championship. That's the problem I have with Mark he just wants to buy it.

Next time Mark learn to respect the game and please SHUT THE UP

[nbascribe]

Dayum....now that's not bad at all.

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