Despite the mess he’s made recently and his habit of making headlines for all the wrong reasons the last few years, give Mark Cuban this much: He’s not Jerry Jones. Cuban will actually hire a general manager, anyway. For that matter, Stephen Jones should check the will. Jerry’s probably taking the title with him.
Cuban not only will hire a new GM now that he’s finally run out of Nelsons, he’ll do it first, and let the GM hire a coach. Consider this deference to order a good sign. Maybe even a lesson learned from the sexual harassment scandal.
Just as long as Cuban learned a lesson from Gersson Rosas, too.
Maybe you forgot the last time he hired a GM to succeed Donnie Nelson. It’s easy enough to do. Rosas lasted three months in 2013 before resigning and retreating down I-45 for another half-dozen years in Houston. Since 2019, he’s been president of the Minnesota Timberwolves, where the jury is still out on his services.
Rosas quit the Mavs before his magazine subscriptions could catch up with him, saying it was “not the best fit.” It was a nice way of saying he was in charge of nothing. Cuban eventually confirmed it, saying he gave Rosas an empty title.
He might rethink that type of move before going after, say, Masai Ujiri, who built Toronto’s title team, is no longer under contract and should be the first option, Michael Finley’s proximity notwithstanding. Finley is family and would almost certainly defer to Cuban, usually a requirement for anyone who’d like to keep the job more than three months. But he doesn’t seem to fit what Cuban said he was looking for back in 2013 and should want now.
Before hiring Rosas, he assessed his role in the organization as a guy who “pushes the edge of the envelope.” He described Donnie, his de facto GM after Nelson’s old man walked, as a “talent evaluator.” Cuban said then that what they needed was someone with organizational skills to tap into all the myriad technological and analytic advances running away with sports.
Once Rosas stepped on Donnie’s toes, though, that was the end of that. Cuban must think differently now, because I don’t know how else you can explain the bloom of Bob Voulgaris, the poker player in charge of quantitative R&D. Or at least that was his title before everything went sideways. If reports are true, Luka Doncic isn’t a fan. Frankly, it’s a mystery why you’d risk alienating your superstar just to keep your numbers guy happy and on the front row. Most teams keep their geeks locked in a small, windowless room and only let them out for feeding and watering.
If Ujiri ranks as the first option with the Mavs’ search firm, and he says he’d take the job only if Voulgaris goes, Cuban shouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
And if Ujiri is the first option and passes, it’ll say plenty about the perception of the Mavs league-wide.
The way it works most places is that the owner hires a president or GM and then lets that person do his or her job. Of course, Dallas isn’t most places. We’re used to owners peeking over shoulders. That’s why it seemed laughable when reports characterized Voulgaris as a “shadow GM.” Cuban already holds that title.
If that’s where Cuban and Jerry are similar, here’s where they’re different: Jerry has no problem letting anyone outside the family go, as Jimmy Johnson will tell you. Cuban is loyal almost to a fault. Donnie pre-dated him with the franchise, and Rick Carlisle served 13 seasons as head coach, the last 10 without winning a playoff round.
But, until last week, anyway, Donnie also knew not to push Cuban too far. So did Carlisle.
So the question is: Could Cuban really turn over the job to an outsider who’d have the unfettered freedom to build a championship roster?
As you may recall from our other history lesson, Cuban has handed over the keys to the organization before. In the wake of the sexual harassment news, he hired Cynt Marshall as CEO. My favorite moment of that drama came when Marshall, a charismatic leader, turned in the direction of Cuban, who sat with his hands in his lap, tail between his legs.
Cuban has seemed like a different person ever since, taking the lead among local owners in social issues during the pandemic.
Of course, letting someone new run the office is one thing; giving an outsider sole propriety over his beloved basketball team is something else entirely.
Cuban must conduct a little personal reckoning if he really wants to clean up the mess he’s made. He’s got a chance now to do something he’s wanted for a long time, and all it requires is getting out of his own way. Good luck with that.
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