The modern Mavericks have made it clear Mark Cuban is no longer part of the day-to-day conversation. That much was obvious from the legal fight, the new ownership structure and the way basketball authority has shifted since Masai Ujiri arrived. Still, Cuban’s recent description of his contact with the franchise - one phone call in three months, lasting about 120 seconds - lands like a reminder that a major piece of the organization’s institutional memory is sitting on the sidelines.
That feels hard to ignore when Cuban still owns 27 percent of the team.
No, that doesn’t mean he automatically gets a seat at the table. But it does raise the question of whether Dallas is wasting something useful by treating him like a stranger.
Cuban knows the franchise, knows the city and knows how to help turn a sleepy operation into something bigger. For a team trying to reset, that kind of experience is not nothing.
Cuban said he saw this coming once Ujiri was hired.
"I absolutely expected it when they hired Masai," Cuban said. "That's why they hired him. To run basketball."
Ujiri’s arrival on May 4 changed the structure fast. He took over as president of basketball operations and alternate governor after a search that lasted several months, and by most outside views the rebuild has started on solid ground.
His track record is hard to argue with: Executive of the Year in Denver in 2012-13, then the architect of Toronto’s 2019 title team. Across his time in Denver and Toronto, his teams went 690-504 and made the playoffs in 12 of 15 seasons.
The changes didn’t stop there. Fifteen days after Ujiri was hired, the Mavericks and Jason Kidd agreed to part ways. Ujiri explained that the team "needed a clean slate to go forward."
That clean-slate approach also fits the direction of Patrick Dumont and the Adelson ownership family, especially with the legal tension around Cuban and the franchise’s planned arena development. Cuban’s companies filed a Rule 202 pre-suit petition against Dumont in Dallas County District Court on July 8 over the arena project, and Cuban has said Dumont is freezing him out of the process. He also said Dumont’s handling of the planned move from downtown to Valley View and its "non-disclosure (to Cuban) is consistent with Dumont’s adversarial business practices and history of failing to uphold his end of the bargain.''
So the friction is real. Nobody is pretending otherwise.
Even so, Dallas has kept moving. Mike Schmitz was hired as general manager days after Ujiri’s introductory news conference. Dusty May was named head coach on June 23, one day before the NBA Draft, and introduced on June 29.
Ujiri has made it clear the offseason is about the future, not the present. That future comes with plenty of pressure after a 26-56 season. Cooper Flagg averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals and won Rookie of the Year, while Kyrie Irving is working his way back from a torn ACL.
"We want,'' Ujiri said recently, "to bring joy back to basketball here."
That’s the mission now. And if the Mavericks are serious about building something new, it’s fair to ask whether pride should stand in the way of using Cuban for more than a 120-second phone call.
He already proved once that he could help bring joy to basketball in Dallas. The question is whether the new Mavericks are willing to let him help do it again.
In Other News...
Mavericks Suddenly Look Like A Real Threat In The West
After a rough last season, the Mavericks have spent the offseason trying to reset the conversation around them. Kyrie Irving is back in the mix, and Dallas has also reshaped both the front office and the coaching staff, part of a broader effort to build a more stable, more credible group around its core. The result is a team that looks very different from the one that stumbled a year ago, with more attention now on whether the roster has been deepened enough to matter in a crowded conference.
ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins has been among those seeing upside in Dallas, calling the Mavericks underrated and pointing to the kind of depth that can keep a team in the postseason hunt. There is also optimism around the teams three-point shooting, a detail that matters in a Western Conference where every margin is tight and every weakness gets exposed quickly. The bigger question is whether all of those pieces will add up fast enough to put Dallas into the kind of race it wants to be in. [Read more 🡒]
Kyrie Irving Just Reminded The NBA What Dallas Still Has
Kyrie Irving keeps showing up in a familiar place, even in a completely different kind of game. The Mavericks guard has been given the highest ball-handling rating in NBA 2K27 at 99, and it is the third straight release in which he has owned that top spot. For Dallas, it is another reminder of just how much shot creation and one-on-one pressure Irving can still bring to the lineup.
Stephen Curry sits second at 97, with Donovan Mitchell tied into the top tier at 93, which only underscores how crowded the leagues guard talent remains. The rankings also come alongside a broader look at recent player movement and contract situations around the list, a backdrop that makes Irvings standing feel less like a novelty and more like a snapshot of where he still fits among the NBAs elite ball handlers. [Read more 🡒]
Anthony Davis Trade Looks Smarter As Mavericks Avoid One Huge Risk
When the Mavericks sent Anthony Davis to Washington, the move was framed as a bet on flexibility as much as talent. Dallas got back assets that later helped in a multi-team deal for players such as Santi Aldama, along with AJ Johnson and a protected future first-round pick, giving the roster more versatile depth without tying itself to a massive commitment at the top of the payroll.
The bigger picture now looks even cleaner for Dallas because the Wizards are not racing into extension talks with Davis, despite his eligibility arriving earlier than that. For the Mavericks, that matters: it means they avoided the kind of long-term risk that can hang over a team if a stars next deal becomes the central question, while Washington is left to navigate a far more complicated timeline with one of the leagues most expensive potential next contracts looming. [Read more 🡒]