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

We all know it's an internet forum, but let's try to be reasonable and not joke about that. Most posters here are men and some of us still pretend not to know things like that happen in every men-ruled business. What's absurd in this piece is having your main guys doing that, something that will probably incentive lower employees to act the same way. But please let's not celebrate that it happened with the Mavs, as the fanbase of any sports team do not deserve to go through stuff like that. It could (can?) happen to any other team, as it very well may be happening.

It's very sad. I'm from Brazil where women are objectified almost everywhere, a country with an extremely misogynist culture. Here, poor teenager girls find older boyfriends and get pregnant very early as a mean to avoid everyday harassment and actual risk of being raped, and I'm not being dramatic, it's the reality of the favelas. The pregnancy and carrying a baby in your arms works as a shield. Most people in the middle and upper classes (where I'm included) ignore those facts as it's not part of their reality, but it's everyday life for the bigger portion of the population. It's absurd. And you hear rich people say "but but but poor girls don't wear condom", well, they don't because they actually need to get pregnant, not because they don't know they should use contraception.

I cannot feel anything good about that, I don't care if it's the Mavs, Hollywood, the US Gymnastics, the Oxfam or my company, the people who did that must end up punished in a way to make others afraid of acting in a similar way, unfortunately it's unlikely to happen. I also hope it doesn't stop with the Mavs, it most certainly happens in many other sports franchises. Sad thing to read about, but that's how things are, better to get public than to have it happening in secrecy.

 

To me this is pretty damning.

Similar to the Donald Sterling situation. The difference being - which admittedly is a pretty big difference - that Cuban didn't necessarily openly and assertively promote the level of sexism in quite the same way Sterling did with the racism....

But it's not that far off, imo. I know you'll think I'm crazy.

BUT... consider Sterling was forced to sell the team because he was caught on tape by TMZ apparently chiding his half-black, half-Latina girlfriend for appearing in Instagram photos with African Americans, then saying "Big Magic Johnson, what has he ever done" in an interview. Sure, he also had a history of racist acts, but he had those the whole time... he wasn't forced to sell the team until the TMZ thing.

In this case, Cuban is going to deny deny deny... DESPITE the fact that at every other point in history he has prided himself on being a hands-on leader and owner, and that every higher up in the organization knew this was happening.

I'm sure I'll also see the "it's not that big of a deal" comments/responses... but women have been mistreated historically in a similar vein as minorities, and Cuban basically allowed a culture of such mistreatment to occur for decades that led to women being fearful for their physical safety, women being denied professional growth opportunities, women actually being assaulted, etc.

Look, I like Cuban on Shark Tank. I thought he was overrated as an owner on the whole, but didn't really have a problem with him. And no, Cuban himself wasn't committing these actions. But this is definitely "on him". Does this happen across organizations... probably, to an extent. Like with Under Armour... where the Mavs CEO left to take a position... and was PROMPTLY kicked out of UA after apparently 1 alleged incident and 2 months on the job. 2 months... not 2 decades.

In my view... to the extent any CONCRETE evidence comes out that Cuban knew what was going on to any extent, he should ABSOLUTELY be forced to sell the team.

Sorry, I just don't care for people that choose time and time again their pocket books over doing what they know is right.

For a very similar, still unfolding story, google Alamo Draft House and the League's (who own it). Another story where ownership chose time and time again to side with $ over values.

 

Man... I heard an inside story about a young new hire stuck in an elevator with a recently career-endingly-injured Mutombo. It's pretty NAUGHTY though. But 100% true.

She says, hi, I'm new, it's my first day I'm just starting.
Mutombo responds - I'm just finishing.

BOOM. NEXT.

 

Cuban has to sell. He's the most hands on owner in sports and had to know about office arrests for domestic violence. There's no way he doesn't know that an employee that travels with the team can't GET INTO CANADA because of an arrest!.


Cuban has to sell!

 

IIRRC Joel Blank was let go bc of his "locker room humor" around the opposite sex, but that wasn't the official reason...

 

PLEASE let this come out! Please! He doesn't deserve Lisa Hernandez.

 

Wow, pretty serious. So timeline for Mavs: championship, trying to mess with Morey, getting screwed by Parsons and D Jordan, broken down, past their prime rosters, admitting to tanking....... all while this workplace misconduct happened.

I cant seriously believe Cuban didn't know about this for the last ~8 years. The dude seems too approachable with his laid back, casual, t-shirt-wearing-to-games behavior, for someone NOT to go tell him any of this.

 

It happened to the Mavericks? Hahaha. Just sell the team to Seattle.

 

Looking through some of the articles on this on the DallasNews website (https://sportsday.dallasnews.com/#_ga=2.23395642.1670764632.1519225929-435526827.1505229751, not sure if you need to register to access), it is worth noting that the initial investigation of this happened back in 1998, when Ross Perot, Jr, not Cuban, owned the team. But it's also worth noting that after the investigation, they kept Ussery on staff. So, this is nothing new, even the incidents in the SI report happened years ago.

All of which falls neatly into the grassy knoll theory! Why is this suddenly becoming a story again now? Just due to this being the current hot button issue? Or something else?

 

Its not him who is molesting people its a dude who got fired.

Some of the complaints are unrelated like the guy watching p*rn at the office how are girls being molested then?

Cuban doing a tank job doesn't mean anything other teams dont admit it but tank anyway. For examples Spurs tanked to get Duncan, Rox tanked to get Hakeem, Lakers intentionally traded for Brewer and played him a lot to tank and get Ball etc.

How did GSW get Curry, Thompson and Green? Or OKC get KD, Harden and Westbrick? Didn't they suck for multiple years and collected picks? Intentional or not that is still tanking so dont get on ypur high horse otherwise why dont we make an example of Boston they tanked and collected assets to trade for KG and Allen recently they collected assets again to get Brown, Tatum, Smart and all the rest of their guys.

 

Lol. How many questions does Cuban ask people on Shark Tank? How many times does he turn down deals because of lack of details in companies? He's the most skeptical of all the people on the show.


You're telling me he bought a team and just "let it ride" without paying any attention to the front office after making drastic changes inside fo the organization (bought new plane, new locker rooms, updated arena).
The Mavs made a guy sign a contract that stipulated he couldn't interact with WOMEN! You make a contract that said that? Cuban didn't know that?

Seems kinda like a bad excuse and for that reason?

 

Dude, it happens at the offices of a lot of sports teams..to some extent. Usually not from the top down and mainly with staffers but i'm sure we will find out in the upcoming days and weeks as more ladies working for sports teams in various leagues across the country, feel unburdened and let the media know what they deal with. It happens a lot. I saw this just as an intern years ago with a team. Happens at a lot of non sports organizations as we know but the sports team front office(especially sales) is prime for this kind of stuff.

THIS to the max!

You'd be surprised. Has nothing to do with being nerdy and all that but rather everything to do with power.

Your first two sentences were SPOT ON. The last one could be a reach but shouldn't be dismissed easily. I don't think that's the reason Les sold and cashed out but it definitely will let him sleep easy at night if(as I believe) more reports come out from various teams and leagues.

 

I want to say I apologize for my joke first post. I did that without reading further, thinking the article would be coming out later. And still, even my initial impulse to pull out the Nerlens photo is wrong.

Sorry about reaching for humor first, I hope the investigation uproots any and all truths throughout the league that needs to be said wrt further #MeToo stories.

I agree with your skepticism.

But let me add one thing. Out of all the owners in the league, at the point of becoming an owner, I think Cuban had the least amount of business experience by a large margin. And zero experience in large companies. Hell, his companies might not have even had HR depts. If any owner could innocently fail to implement safe guards against sexual harassment at the CEO level (which basically allowed it to be protected within HR, via the Pittman guy), a very inexperienced owner seems like the obvious candidate.

So, if nothing else, I'm not surprised Cuban's team was most susceptible to a CEO like this, and potentially suppressing victims, via a rooted, corrupt culture, from getting word to the owner. Shark Tank shows Cuban's brilliance as a serial entrepreneur, but running a large company it does not.

And at this point, based upon the victim quotes wrt saying Cuban is innocent and the entire Basketball side of the team is, I do believe Cuban when he says he really spends all his time on the basketball side of operations (we know he spends a lot vs other owners), so could truly be naive....although ultimately responsible for sure.

All that said in Cuban's defense, I am highly skeptical, still.

 

Not that I believe Cuban knew nothing but let's pretend.... If Cuban concentrated on the business side and let people do their jobs on the basketball side, he would have been aware of the rampant abuse toward women inside his business. Cuban's a business guy pretending to be a basketball expert.

 

Anybody remember when Mark Cuban was considering a run for POTUS? If nothing else, this assures us that Cuban will never be our President. Feels good to go ahead and get this out of the way now...

 

Yeah, I'm not buying that at all. More like this probably came to light with all the #metoo allegations that are being discussed in every industry in America right now.

It's not just one incident with one dude either. It's multiple incidents and multiple people....and he claimed not to know? This is pretty damning stuff and seems to be an open secret within the Mavericks org and in the Dallas business community in general....during the ENTIRETY of his ownership. I find it EXTREMELY convenient and unbelieveable he didn't know.

 

Sura faints.

 

Blank was with the rockets for a long time. Wouldn't be surprised if he had been doing it for a while too. If I was a sports team owner I would be worried. We have panthers, texans, clippers, mavericks I wonder who is next.

 

Yeah, Cuban loves to finger point at others for how their business is run and he's had this **** going on for 2 decades.

 

And he actually has little business experience (wrt running day to day operations) compared to all the other owners. He's a serial entrepreneur/elite salesman type of success story, who was able to cash-in on an era huge overvaluing of companies. Dude sold a company with 300 employees for $5.7 Billion dollars -- all because he was first to successfully do large-scale streaming, demonstrated by streaming a Victoria Secret Fashion Show, attached to the name broadcast.com, creating visions of disrupting TV Broadcast Comapny strongholds, in the minds of investors.

btw: his first streaming was college basketball ... bball is a true passion.