June 21, 2006 12:00 AM
A Real Maverick
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is one of my favorite characters in sports. He is part Al Davis, part Evel Knievel and part Alfred E. Neuman. He is the anti-Stan Kroenke if you will. He is everything an owner should be. I love the fact that he is constantly standing up for his team (Stan Kroenke is hardly ever visible) and that he is knowledgeable (Kroenke pretends to know the game, yet he is totally clueless as to building a franchise). Quite honestly, I wish Cuban was the owner of the Nuggets. And the Rockies for that matter (don't get me started).
June 21, 2006
8:17 AM
Mark McLaughlin writes:
Great stuff, very creative.
June 21, 2006
3:55 PM
Harry Thomas writes:
In San Antonio, we had something of a dilemma concerning the Finals this year. We could root against the Heat because Shaq has bad-mouthed David Robinson and the Spurs in the past; or we could root against the Mavericks because Cuban has bad-mouthed Tim Duncan, the Spurs and the San Antonio Riverwalk. But our hatred for Cuban was tempered by the fact that Avery Johnson, who made the winning shot for us in our first NBA Championship, is now their head coach.
Basically Cuban is a loud-mouthed frat boy with money. I appreciate that he is a fan of the game, and all of us have had the conviction that the refs are singling out our team for fouls while letting the other side get away with murder. But Cuban does tend to go too far in his attempt to "build up a rivalry." He asked his fans to boo (former Maverick) Michael Finley during the Spurs-Mavericks series, even though Finley's move to San Antonio was instigated by Dallas.
We all know if the NBA had its way, it would have New York and L.A. in the Finals every year. The league's worst nightmare of a Finals series would be San Antonio/Indiana, because only the (small TV market) home town teams would watch it.
So who did we ultimately root for? The Heat, because the comments by Shaq were several years ago, and he did attend Cole High School here in San Antonio. But we would have preferred to root for Dallas because of Avery and Dallas being a Texas team. Cuban just poisoned the well.
BTW: I root for the Spurs in NBA basketball, but I've been a Broncos' fan since 1977, and have never wavered on that. That's why I always check your cartoons.