Appearing on The Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday morning (video link), Mavericks owner Mark Cuban admitted that after his team was eliminated from the playoffs this season, the franchise “did everything possible to lose games” and improve its draft position. As Cuban explained, once they get on the floor, all players will try to win, but management can put a team in a position to lose by giving extended minutes to young, inexperienced players.
The Mavs’ approach to regular season games down the stretch was hardly a secret, and Dallas wasn’t the only team to go in that direction. The Suns, for instance, shut down players like Eric Bledsoe well in advance of the end of the regular season in an effort to improve their lottery standing. Still, teams rarely acknowledge that strategy publicly, making Cuban’s admission somewhat surprising.
Cuban’s comments also come just a few months after he stated that his club had no interest in tanking. About a month into the season, with the Mavs off to a league-worst 3-13 start, Cuban insisted that the team believed in always competing, adding that he didn’t want his players to develop any bad habits.
“There are so many teams that became four years away from four years away because guys just learned how to lose,” Cuban said in November. “They stopped caring about any individual game and just got used to it, and you don’t want guys developing those bad habits. We have so many young guys on this team, we want the games to mean something. Not to be, ‘OK, who are we going to pull in the fourth quarter so we can lose this game?’ That’s not how teams develop good habits.”
It will be interesting to see whether Cuban, who has faced many fines over the years for his criticism of NBA referees, will face any penalties from commissioner Adam Silver for his acknowledgement of the Mavs’ end-of-season tanking.
The Mavs ultimately landed the No. 9 spot in this year’s draft, with Tuesday’s lottery results not affecting their draft position.
Can’t the season ticket holders sue him?
For what?
No. Why would they?
So Lebron can’t rest for one game but the Mavs and the Suns can purposefully play sub-optimal teams for the last two months of the season.
LeBron will end up playing almost 100 games this year while the Suns and Mavs only really played about 50 where they were trying. How does this make sense?
2 months……only 50 games trying? You clearly didn’t see the Mavs play at all. They played the bench extended minutes for the last 6 games after being eliminated from playoff contention, and they still played starters some over that stretch. I think Dirk missed 2 games, Barnes the last 3.. As infuriating as it was for fans…….Now the Sun’s on the other hand……they shut down a healthy Bledsoe with 15 to go.
Mavs and Suns weren’t the only 2. Lots of teams do it every year
The Sixers shut their team down 5 years ago and only started using NBA caliber players again this year so clearly teams can do whatever they want…
Mavs held the 8th worst record going into last night of season. They won in Memphis and the grizz had most starters playing. Im not really sure they were trying to tank..
What pissed me off the most is that by winning that night, they slid back to the 9th worst record. Meanwhile last night the 8th worst record moved into the top 3 in the draft, smfh
When you can’t even tank right