In what appears to be an unprecedented move, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has reportedly agreed to sell his majority stake in the franchise, but will retain control of the team’s basketball operations.
How unprecedented would such a deal be? So much so, that David Samson doesn’t believe it’s real — at least not in the form it’s being reported.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter) shortly after Substack’s Marc Stein broke the news, Samson questioned how it’s possible an owner could sell the majority stake in his team while also retaining final say over the on-court product.
“There is simply no way this story can be true,” the former Miami Marlins team president and current Meadowlark Media personality wrote. “He cannot keep control of the team after selling a majority stake.”
There is simply no way this story can be true. He cannot keep control of the team after selling a majority stake. #waittosee https://t.co/RUKW81etm4
— David P. Samson (@DavidPSamson) November 29, 2023
Appearing on Wednesday’s episode of The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz, Samson expounded his belief that the reporting on the sale hasn’t been accurate.
“It’s being reported everywhere and I don’t know why,” Samson said. “You can have a step transaction where there’s a path to control like what [Alex Rodriguez] is doing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, where you agree on a price and you pay installments and then when you’re done paying installments, you get control of the team and you’re a limited partner until you become the general partner.”
“That’s pretty common. But to sell the team outright, a majority share, and then still maintain control? I’ve never seen it. And I would find it extremely hard to believe that it is happening in this instance. I believe the reporting is wrong in this case.”
"To sell the team outright, a majority share, and then still maintain control? I've never seen it. I would find it *extremely* hard to believe it's happening in this instance. I believe the reporting is wrong." – @DavidPSamson on reports of Mark Cuban selling a majority stake in… pic.twitter.com/ipvXlpsFyh
— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) November 29, 2023
The reporting might not be inaccurate — at least technically — but it does appear to be incomplete.
While nobody is disputing that Cuban — who is also leaving his role on Shark Tank — will remain in control of basketball operations once the sale is complete, the mechanism for him doing so remains unclear.
Is the Adelson family — which is purchasing the majority stake in the Mavericks from Cuban at a reported $3.5 billion valuation — simply keeping him on to run the team’s basketball operations until further notice, and are they free to fire him at will? Or is Cuban’s role with the franchise outlined in the sale agreement, and if so, for how long? And what would happen if the new owners did eventually want to replace him in the role?
Ultimately, Cuban remaining in his role running the Mavs’ on-court operations appears to be accurate information. But the point that Samson — who has firsthand experience in similar situations — seems to be making is that someone in the franchise still has to have the final say. And if he no longer owns the majority stake in the team, then how could that person actually be Cuban?
[The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz]
