Mark Cuban has been fined $600,000 by the NBA forsaying his team should tank this season and lose as many games as possible from here on out.
Cuban called tanking “brutal” but acknowledged that he told his team that it would be best to lose for the rest of the 2017-18 season.
Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that the fine was for “for public statements detrimental to the NBA.”
Cuban told Julius Erving on the “House Call with Dr. J” podcast on February 18th that he shared his opinion with the team recently.
“I’m probably not supposed to say this, but, like, I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are, you know, we weren’t competing for the playoffs. I was like, ‘Look, losing is our best option,'” Cuban said on the podcast. “Adam [Silver] would hate hearing that, but I at least sat down and I explained it to them. And I explained what our plans were going to be this summer, that we’re not going to tank again. This was, like, a year-and-a-half tanking, and that was too brutal for me. But being transparent, I think that’s the key to being kind of a players owner and having stability.”
The Mavericks (18-40) have the third-worst record in the NBA. The team with the worst record has a 25 percent chance of making the No. 1 pick in June’s draft.
Starting with the 2019 draft, the three teams with the worst records will share a 14 percent chance of getting the No. 1 overall pick, lessening the incentive to lose at the end of the season.
