Mark Cuban tore into former Dallas Mavericks Employee Gavin Mulloy after he said “Cuban should be run out of Dallas” in a Facebook post because of the Luka Doncic trade.
On Feb. 1, the Mavs, Los Angeles Lakers, and Utah Jazz completed a three-team deal sending Doncic, Maxi Kleber, and Markieff Morris to the Los Angeles Lakers, Jalen Hood-Schifino and two second-round picks to the Jazz, and Anthony Davis, Max Christie, as well as a first-round pick to Dallas.
Since the trade, the Lakers have looked increasingly competitive in the West. The Mavs, meanwhile, have seen Davis go down with injury, Kyrie Irving ruled out for the season, and other key role players go down as well. The team sits ninth in the West with a 37-38 record as a result.
Mulloy was effectively blaming Cuban for surrendering the right to run basketball operations when he sold his majority stake. Cuban has stated he would not have allowed the Doncic trade to happen if he was still in charge.
Cuban Holds Nothing Back
The entire exchange can be read on Facebook here.
Cuban retorted back with, “Hey Gavin Mulloy how much of a bonus did you get when I sold?”
Mulloy responded that with, “Not enough to make up for the Luka trade. I’d give your dirty $$ back for Luka to be here, how about you?”
That’s when Cuban decided to empty the clip, eviscerating Mulloy in a long reply.
“You didn’t say a word when it showed up in your account. Did you? Sure looked good when we made it to the finals didn’t it?
I did every damn thing I could for 23 years. Kept prices lower than not only any NBA team, but lower than college teams too. I had $2 tickets for multiple years. When I sold there were always 4k tickets under $29.
I made money 2 out of 23 years I was the majority owner. Lost hundreds of millions of dollars. And you kept on collecting your salary.
So my $dirty dollars didn’t get a peep out of you those 23 years. Or when you got your check every two weeks. Or when you got your bonus.
Go back to what I said when I sold the team. I didn’t want my kids and family to have to deal with people like you. I honestly got tired of the growing number of fans who became pr**ks on social media. People exactly like you.
I paid your salary. I paid you a bonus I didn’t have to give you. Nico and the new owners do something none of us liked and you decide to try to f**k with me.
Thank you for confirming I made the right decision.”
Ex-Employee Doesn’t Stop There, Neither Does Cuban
Mulloy then went on defend himself with regards to the money saying he took a pay cut to work for the Mavs. He also bashed Cuban for allegedly underpaying workers and that staff warns other people of the lower salary.
“Did you like when you said you were going to maintain basketball ops control, or did you make a terrible business deal by not getting that in writing?
Cuban countered that by saying he fully expected to remain in charge of basketball decisions after the sale but that the NBA wouldn’t let him put it in the contract. He also pointed to the recent sale of the Boston Celtics as another example where the selling party was not able to maintain basketball decision control.
The 66-year-old billionaire went on to say, “I thought they would stick to their word because they didn’t know the first thing about running a team. Someone obviously changed their mind.”
Finally, Cuban went on to express more frustration with fans who have attacked him over the years and how much of a factor it was in him deciding to sell the team.