Upcoming SI story to talk about alleged sexual assault in the Dallas Mavericks organization

Cuban buying his way out of trouble.

 

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/...-suspending-mark-cuban-dallas-mavericks-owner

NEW YORK -- Some have wondered why the NBA didn't suspend Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban after an investigation found that male members of the organization harassed female employees.

Commissioner Adam Silver said Friday he decided against suspending Cuban, in part, because an investigation concluded that the owner wasn't directly implicated in the conduct.

"That was an important factor for me in making that decision," Silver said Friday after the league's board of governors meetings in Manhattan. "Should he have known in many cases? Absolutely. But again, from the 215 witness interviews, the over a million pages [of documents in the report], the clear picture that was presented was Mark was absentee from the business side of the organization. So that was a critically important factor."

[...]

Silver said Friday he decided against suspending Cuban, in part, due to his transparency during the investigation and due to the degree with which Cuban and the Mavericks implemented changes in the wake of the allegations and investigation.

"That to me is an example that I don't see in any other industry, where someone is willing to put themselves out that way and be that forthcoming and act and be that responsive," Silver said. "So given the totality of those circumstances, I ultimately decided that a suspension was not appropriate." On Friday, Silver said in a memo to all teams that the NBA would like them to implement some of the mandates the Mavericks must adhere to in the wake of the investigation. The memo also encouraged teams to hire more women, particularly in leadership and supervisory positions.

Silver asked teams to thoroughly review the report about the Mavericks. The league stopped short of flatly ordering the 29 other clubs to institute new policies, though Silver's wishes were clear.

Silver addressed the issues with team owners at the annual board of governors meeting earlier in the day.

"The No. 1 recommendation, not surprisingly, in the investigator's report is that you need women in the workplace," Silver said, "in order to have a diverse point of view, in order to ensure that ultimately that women are heard in the workplace."

The league asked clubs to have what it is calling "Community Conversations" with their own employees within the next two weeks about the investigation and subsequent report about the Mavericks.

"These are traumatic moments for people and there needs to be an opportunity to be heard and to have a full discussion about how people are feeling emotionally in these moments," Silver said.

The league urged teams to consider making more than a dozen changes, including:

-Increasing the number of female staff, including in leadership and supervisory positions.

-Better harassment-reporting procedures for victims of misconduct.

-Additional commitments to ensuring that harassment is eliminated and diversity is improved.

-Anonymous workplace-culture surveys of employees.

-Stronger human-resource departments.

-Sexual harassment training, with special training for managers and supervisors.

-Having general counsel employed in-house.

The NBA established a leaguewide "Respect in the Workplace" hotline after the Mavs story broke last winter.

"All the teams in the room were very receptive to those kinds of programs and I think it was a sobering moment," Silver said. "People are looking through those lists saying, can something like this happen in my workplace? Whether it's the NBA or any other businesses they operate, what are the best practices preventing those things going forward?

"I can only say, we will redouble our efforts at the league and working with our teams to try to ensure that the kind of events that happened at the Mavericks never happen again."​

 

BS from Silver.

Commissioner Adam Silver said Friday he decided against suspending Cuban, in part, because an investigation concluded that the owner wasn't directly implicated in the conduct.

His negligence and ignorance to issues perpetuated the problem. Cuban bought his way out and showed enough contrition to escape the suspension.

 

I have a hard time believing a control freak like Mark Cuban was such an absentee from the business side of their operation. Getting off without a suspension is surprising. Why isn't there isn't more outrage?

 

Fatigue on the part of the fans and media; predominantly a male fanbase

 

What leads you to believe he is a control freak? The guy has his hands in so many projects I don't think he can afford to be that in tune. I mean, he missed his recruitment meeting with Dwight to film a Shark Tank episode. He has pet projects for sure, but I for one believe he was somewhat ignorant to a lot of what was happening.

People wanna compare this to Donald Sterling. Sterling said racist and bigoted things to a mistress he had, there was a smoking gun in his hands. Cuban may or may not have even known about this misogyny, and he wasn't even the source of it. I'm not saying ignorance is a complete defense, but it is a mitigating circumstance.

 

Please don't even mention DTS. That has no relevance to this at all. He and Cuban are so different, it's not even funny.

The Mavs are the toy Cuban obsesses over with every fiber of his being [exaggerated for effect]. No owner in the NBA projects more of a "I'm the man in charge" aura than Mark Cuban. This is why I have doubts he was completely ignorant of this pervasive culture under his nose for so many years.

 

Sure he is in it terms of players and talent, but this wasn't a talent issue. It wasn't a coaching issue. This was a business side issue. It's the other side of the business that he most likely had a lot less interaction with. I have yet to see evidence of the contrary to that too. I just end up hearing a lot of "he should have known", or "he had to have known" and I for one haven't seen anything to suggest that. If he really ran things the way you're insinuating, being the mavs owner would be a full time job. I'm not even convinced it's a part time job to him.

I also don't think he was 100% ignorant to it either. He probably heard murmurs and made the false assumption that the right people were in charge to take care of it. To me, that doesn't scream of an action that requires a suspension.

 

BS. Cuban paid the legal expanses for the writer that beat up his fiancé so bad, that she had to get hospitalized. The writer was arrested at his workplace, everybody knew. The victim also contacted Cuban directly, told her story. And when it happened again, this time with a Mavs employee the writer was dating at that time, Cuban still didn't fire him. Yeah, poor Mark knew nothing and never encouraged this toxic environment. Mitigating af.

You know what's the difference? Sterling called out those, the league is making money with: blacks. Cuban's victims were "just" women, that's the reason he's still out there.

 

NBA aware of additional sexual misconduct allegations

SHANGHAI -- NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Friday that the league office is monitoring how the Dallas Mavericks are responding to allegations of improper workplace conduct that were not included in the investigative report released two weeks ago.

The Dallas Morning News reported Friday, citing former female employees that spoke on the condition of anonymity, that longtime team photographer Danny Bollinger has a history of making lewd comments and propositioning women at work.

Two of the women told the newspaper that they informed investigators about Bollinger's misconduct, but he was not included in the 43-page report released at the conclusion of the seven-month independent investigation. Silver said the league office had been informed of the allegations against Bollinger, who was sent home from the Mavs' trip to China on Thursday.

"My concern level is always extraordinarily high when you're hearing stories about any inappropriate conduct in the workplace, whether it's those allegations at the Mavericks or anywhere at our teams," Silver said during his news conference before the Mavericks-Philadelphia 76ers preseason game.

"I will say that, when the investigators did their review of the Mavericks' organization, they made a decision to not make public allegations that were brought by employees who chose to remain anonymous. What they did at the end of the investigation was, in essence, shift to the new management of the Dallas Mavericks, run by Cynthia Marshall, their findings with an understanding that Cynthia Marshall, then using a more traditional human resources process, would continue to investigate particular employees and then act on them.

"Part of the process, the new process we put in place with the Mavericks, was an ongoing reporting obligation to the league office. So Cynthia Marshall has been in constant contact with Kathy Behrens at the league office. We were aware of those additional allegations, and we are monitoring how they are responding to them.

"To the best of my knowledge, and I haven't talked to Cynthia in the last few days, I think they're well equipped now with the new organization they put in place to do the appropriate and necessary investigations and then to act on those findings."

The 50-year-old Bollinger has worked for the Mavericks for 18 years, but according to a 2002 Sports Illustrated story he had a personal relationship with Cuban before that. That article says that he introduced Cuban to his future wife, Tiffany Stewart, in 1997 when Bollinger was dating Stewart's sister.

Among the allegations against Bollinger cited by the Morning News, one woman accused him of taking close-up photos of Mavericks dancers' bodies and then showing them to her unsolicited and making inappropriate comments. The woman said that she did not report Bollinger to human resources but did talk to investigators about the behavior.

Another woman, who worked as a volunteer for the team, said that Bollinger stopped her car as she was leaving the office on two occasions and propositioned her for sex. She did report the incidents to human resources.

Contacted by the Dallas Morning News, Cuban said that the process of ridding the team of sexual misconduct is ongoing and denied interfering with that process.

"To suggest that the Mavs hid anything or didn't take an action for any reason, any whatsoever, is to claim that you believe that Cynt (Cynthia Marshall) and the professionals she brought in are not capable of doing their jobs," Cuban said, according to the newspaper. "They have, they are and will continue to do the jobs they know how to do and continue to have carte blanche to make any personnel decisions they feel the need to make in accordance with the guidelines they defined, not what any outside organization feels they should be."

Marshall told the newspaper that their internal investigation is ongoing.

"We were transparent about the findings of the independent investigation," she said. "Our own internal investigations will not yield transparency. It's private. It's the normal course of doing business."​

 

@J.R. looks like Cuban can OPEN HIS WALLET again, fork over some dough and cary on.

No suspension needed on that ignorant clown. Write them checks tho

 

Wow, Cuban's evidently impossible-to-fire work buddies seem really nice and cool.

 

So Cuban's close friend miraculously didn't find himself being mentioned in the official report and is still working with the team like nothing is wrong. \
Just a coincidence I'm sure.
Enough with the creeps already. I wish everyone of them will start losing their job and be publicly humiliated.

 

Thanks @malakas for the bump I couldn't find this thread to post about Cuban's sumbaggery. I think Silver might be complicit in this sham too. Silver went easy on Cuban in the first place only to find out he ignored some of the other allegations.

 

So they made a report and omitted complaints against Cuban's buddy? Lol. Whatever.

 

Sources: Dallas Mavericks fire longtime team photographer amid sexual harassment allegations

 

I think that the fact that they traded for a player accused of rape in the wake of this really says everything we need to know about Cuban and that organization.

 

How you do suspend an owner?
The apex dude.

Does that mean he is replaced, should there be an interim one for the time being?

No clue.

However, Cuban was the best owner they had in a long time.

 

i assume they just ban him from attending games. isn't that what happened to sterling?