Ron Borges

Mark Cuban speaks his mind for a lot of reasons, not the least of them being that he can afford to. This rubs some people the wrong way. I am not one of them.

When Forbes magazine sets your net worth at $1.8 billion, give or take a million or two or 10, you can pretty much say what you want, especially if you can afford a good attorney. His behavior is so rare these days that he comes off to some people as a self-absorbed lunatic.

Occasionally, the Dallas Mavericks’ owner does act like a lunatic. If you’ve worked hard enough to pile up $1.8 billion, you are probably self-absorbed, but then again he’s a basketball fan so that explains a lot of the public lunacy right there.

Should he run into the stands to defend the besmirched honor of his coach’s wife? Well, it might not have been the smartest thing to rush to the aid of Cassandra Johnson behind the Mavs’ bench in Phoenix when she got into it with several Suns fans Tuesday, but if the story about the incident is even remotely correct, it was probably the right thing to do.

Although NBA commissioner David Stern probably disagrees. He’s the kind of guy who wears wingtips to the beach so his stuffed-shirted opinion can be discounted for the purposes of this discussion.

Stern has at times treated Cuban quite sternly, having fined him more than $1 million for eight separate infractions of his code of conduct. He even suspended him for three games during Cuban’s first two years of ownership.

Is it not greater lunacy to think fining a guy $1 million when he's worth $1.8 billion will change his behavior?

Cuban appears to be a Mavs fan who got rich enough to buy the team. Is it surprising then that this results in a guy who pops off a bit from time to time? And so what if he does?

Does he whine a bit too much about the officiating in the NBA? Yes but you would too if you had to watch it as many nights as he does sitting next to the Mavs’ bench.

Was he wrong when he wrote in his blog that he wouldn’t hire the league’s head of officials “to manage a Dairy Queen?” It was his opinion, after all, so how could that be wrong? He’s hired a few people in his day, so he probably has some idea what he’s looking for in an employee. So why did expressing that opinion cost him $500,000?

He should keep himself off the floor and out of the stands, to be sure, but not because Stern says so. He should do it because if he doesn’t, one of these days a player or fan is liable to show him what a real lunatic is capable of. But popping off about how bad NBA officiating is killing his team? Who doesn’t do that?

The only difference between Cuban and most other people is that he says what he feels publicly rather than whispering it to a reporter in a back hallway in the hopes he or she will make his case for him in the next day’s newspaper without bringing his name into it. Why does he do this? Because he can.

Frankly, pro sports needs a few more guys Cuban. Guys who have a pulse. Guys who have a passion. Guys, frankly, who aren’t pre-packaged, slippery products of some PR machine. Guys who look at the standings at least as often as they look at the gate receipts. Among other favorable traits, Cuban is a resident of the 21^st century not the 19^th, like a lot of the stuffed shirts who own professional sports teams.

Sports blog Cuban waits to hear from J.R. Smith

Instead of a white belt and matching loafers, he wears bad-looking T-shirts and black jeans. Given my druthers, I’ll take the latter look.

When he has ideas about improving officiating in the NBA playoffs, what’s the harm expressing those thoughts publicly? You think a lot of paying customers aren’t thinking the same thing he’s saying?

And does Stern really think the officials labor under the delusion the owners like them?

Once Cuban said, “If the league wants the best officiating in every game, only use the best officials. Anything less cheats us all.”

Is that the ranting of the radical fringe? Hardly, unless you’re Stern or some NBA reporters.

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