Posts tagged MarkCuban at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wants to become a big player in mixed martial arts, and I'm glad that HDNet, the cable channel he owns, provided live coverage of the Dream.3 show in Japan this weekend.

But Jim Murphy of The Savage Science makes some good points that reflect what I was thinking while I watched Dream.3: HDNet has some work to do on the production values of its live MMA coverage. Murphy writes:

my experience as a DREAM.3 viewer bordered on painful. Were it not my job to do a play by play narrative on the event I would have literally turned it off midway through. For the production and broadcast elements to be so qualitatively poor as to ruin an excellent night of fights is downright inexcusable. The HD Net US coverage of DREAM.3 was easily the worst overall production of a major promotion fight sport show that I've ever seen. In a lifetime of watching boxing, pro wrestling and MMA I've honestly never seen anything like it.

I'm not quite prepared to go that far -- I saw some 1980s pro wrestling shows that looked like they were being broadcast by a guy standing in his basement with a camcorder -- but HDNet's work is, from a technical perspective, clearly inferior to the product UFC puts out.

Even if you forgive HDNet for cutting costs by not sending its announcers to Japan, they could have done a better job of giving home viewers the feel of being there, they could have shown the clock to let viewers know how much time was left in each round, and Bas Rutten could have seemed like he cared more about the fights. It was a disappointing effort for HDNet.

According to a report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Dallas Mavericks have their man. The paper is reporting that a verbal deal is in place with Rick Carlisle to become the new head coach of the Mavericks. It will be his third head coaching job in the NBA, this time succeeding Avery Johnson who was fired after another disappointing first round exit.

The deal outlined by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram by a source close to the situation is a four year contract that will pay Carlisle a little over $4 million per year, which, if you're keeping score at home, is more than Johnson made. Carlisle has long been considered the front runner for the deal, and today was the expected day of deliverance. He brings with him a 281-211 lifetime coaching record, and a .484 playoff career winning percentage.

Known for coaching a balanced offense-defense philosophy and a strict offensive structure, Carlisle's first priority will be to form some sort of cohesion from the semi-chaotic-chaotic mess the Mavericks devolved into at times after the acquisition of Jason Kidd. Figuring out what to do with Josh Howard after his comments regarding offseason drug use and late-year shooting slump might also be up there. Either way, Mark Cuban got the guy he wanted, the Mavericks have a new head coach, and it's Rick Carlisle.

There's a report this morning -- backed up by an NBA TV talking head last night -- saying Rick Carlisle has been chosen as the next coach of the Dallas Mavericks. We'd accept this as fact if the source weren't Peter Vescey, who in the past week has retracted a column and errantly reported Derrick Coleman needs a heart transplant.

Vescey reports in the New York Post that Carlisle has interviewed with the Knicks on Wednesday, but has since wowed Mark Cuban and Donnie Nelson down in Big D. Vescey parroted the same report on NBA TV's postgame festivities last night (via HoopsHype). ESPN.com's Marc Stein (the most plugged-in national reporter when it comes to Dallas) offers Carlisle only as a favorite in the job hunt, one of five candidates Cuban will consider. The Dallas Morning News, for its part, have nothing on the potential hire.

My only concern for the Mavs here: You need some creativity on offense, right? You need a coach who will, at the very least, turn the reins over to Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki and let the points fly, yes? Carlisle spent four seasons in Indiana; here are the Pacers' ranks in leaguewide offensive efficiency each of those seasons, chronologically: 9th, 18th, 21st, 30th. Yep, worst offense in the league in 2006-07. What did Jim O'Brien do with basically the same roster in 2007-08? 19th in the league.

Carlisle can coach defense, and he's not likely to grate on Kidd like Avery Johnson did. But this sure as heck doesn't seem like your typical magical elixir.

OK, so the Mavericks are out of the NBA Playoffs, which to Mark Cuban has to feel like the equivalent of ending a long, arduous work day. You know what's great after a long, arduous work day? The Cubs, and a cold beer:

On other visits to Wrigley Field, he sat in the bleachers. But on Wednesday night, Mark Cuban sat in Tribune Co.'s front-row seats next to the Cubs' dugout. He declined to talk with media before the game, except to say he wanted to enjoy the Cubs and a beer. [...]

"Major League Baseball doesn't need me," he said. "I'm just a fan."

See? Beer 'n a ballgame -- it'll cure what ails you. Of course, unlike most fans, Cuban can not only afford to sit in the Tribune Company's first-row seats, he can afford to put in a realistic bid to purchase the Cubs from that capitalist dog Sam Zell. Whether he will choose to do so is still up in the air. Whether anyone should care every time Mark Cuban shows up at a Cubs game is yet another (considerably more valid) story altogether.

Craig Ehlo is mint, but I think this theory he tossed out on Sporting News Radio -- documented by Larry Brown Sports -- is a little wacky.

I think Mark Cuban will actually go after Bobby Knight. You know he just lives in Lubbock, Texas, only 375 miles west of there. Cuban is an Indiana grad and I wouldn't put it past him to offer something to Bobby Knight if Bobby Knight would be willing.

"Only 375 miles west?" Short commute, really. As Larry asks, what exactly would Cuban offer? To relocate the francise to Lubbock? An ownership stake? A two-year supply of Big League Chew and single-malt? I mean, Jason Kidd couldn't swallow his medicine for three months under Avery Johnson's leadership. Knight might not make it out of training camp alive.

There's a subtle truth somewhere in this, though, I think. Cuban won't make a quiet hire. Some Tom Thibodeau character isn't getting this job. It will either be a massive big name (like Mike D'Antoni) or some obscure absurdity (like Charles Oakley).

While we're throwing out completely unsubstantiated guesses, though: What about David Blatt? That'd get Cuban the sufficient amount of accolades.

Intrepid ESPN.com scribe/Dallas resident Marc Stein has the inevitable scoop: Avery Johnson has been canned by Mark Cuban today. Stein also reports (as he did early this morning) that Cuban considered firing Avery before the playoffs started, which sounds so insane it might actually be true.

Fear not, Johnson Family. Donnie Walsh (of the Knicks) and John Paxson (of the Bulls) would be suckers not to be on Avery's tail immediately. The Knickerbockers desperately need a firm hand to transition the franchise back from Hell; the Bulls have all the defensive talent to combine with The Little General in order to form the league's top defense for the next decade. Hell, the Sonics should fire P.J. Carlesimo, MJ should backtrack on the Larry Brown hire, and any of a half-dozen other squads should make room on the bench, if Johnson will have them.

Understand this: Avery Johnson is one of the league's best coaches, period. And he's 43 years old. You want the next Sloan, the next Popovich ... a guy who can lead your franchise for decades of wins? Then you try to hire Johnson. (Meanwhile, for Dallas ... does it matter who the Mavericks hire? No one is ever going to last more than a few seasons while Cuban owns the team. What top candidate -- like Mike D'Antoni or potentially Flip Saunders -- wants to work for Cuban?)

Day-after eulogies have a way of making squeaks and squawks of truth peak out from the shadows. It is the day after in Dallas, and hey! there's Jeff Kaplan of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (via CSTB) reporting on why Avery Johnson canceled Monday's practice, leading to a team mutiny and bad mojo all around.

A late-night party to celebrate Josh Howard's 28th birthday after Sunday's Game 4 loss turned Dallas Mavericks coach Avery Johnson livid and led him to cancel Monday's practice, two sources confirmed.

Johnson, who stressed no partying during the series, was informed before Monday's scheduled practice that Howard handed out fliers to teammates in the locker room before Game 4, inviting them to his party at a Dallas nightclub. [...]

Upon learning of the party, the sources said, Johnson entered the locker room and asked the players who attended to stand up. Infuriated, Johnson lit into his team and then called off practice. He told the team they'd meet on the flight to New Orleans.

Kaplan reports only a few Mavericks attended Howard's bash, but it seems one was too many for Johnson. But do you blame him? Of course not. It should not this difficult to follow a 'no-parties' decree in the midst of a difficult playoffs series.

Howard shouldn't get killed for (the renewed interest in) his (old news) weed admission last week (the 'bad timing' was not his fault; he got asked a question and he is not a liar), but this incident leaves Maverick blood on his hands. Know your boundaries, man. (It will be worth watching how Mark Cuban responds to this; even if Avery's gone, might Josh also have gone too far?)

Various Mavericks fans have been calling for Johnson's termination since the Warriors upended Dallas in the first round of last season, but Mark Cuban has stood pretty firmly by his coach.

But you have to figure that if the players suddenly decide to publicly turn on AJ, that things could change drastically. And I may be going out on a limb here, but let's say that 'practicing without your coach and contrary to his orders' qualifies as 'publicly turning on'.

The players stepped out on their own Monday afternoon. After coach Avery Johnson spoke briefly with the team at American Airlines Center, he canceled practice and said he would see everybody at the team plane for the flight to New Orleans.

But several players said that they wanted to practice. So they did, without the coaching staff.

[...] Johnson talked openly Monday about whether the players are still in his corner. He said he will continue to run his team the way he believes it should be run. He said that since the trade for Jason Kidd, the transition has been rocky.

The Morning-News also made it pretty clear that Avery's tone was not that of "pleased" when discussing the players only practice. Avery Johnson isn't the type of guy that would just give up, so it's a little surprising to see him cancel practice.

Not to mention he's a self-admitted control freak, so this type of thing probably would not sit well. Although, maybe his attitude just doesn't sit well with certain players. And honestly, who would be surprised to see Kidd either not succumb to Avery's controlling ways or to just straight up lead a quiet mutiny in Dallas? You can put your hand down, Byron. It was hypothetical.

Mavericks' owner Mark Cuban took some time off from feuding with bloggers to provide us with a somewhat interesting look into why it's possible (and accurate) for the shot clock to occasionally show more time on it than the game clock. Initially this doesn't seem to make sense, as common sense tells you that if there are less than 24 seconds showing on the game clock (23.6, for example), then the 24 second shot clock should be turned off. But according to Cuban, that isn't the case.

When the shot clock starts counting down, it doesn't start counting at 24.0 seconds. It actually starts counting at 24.9 seconds. So when the shot clock changes from 24 to 23, that means the shot clock has counted down from 24.9 and has changed to 23.9.

This also means that when the shot clock shows 1 second left, there can be anywhere from 1.9 seconds to 1.0 seconds left. This approach allows the shot clock to go off and sound the horn as it turns from 1.0 to zero, having counted down 24 seconds from 24.9 to .9 . So there could be 1.7 seconds showing on the shot clock, .9 seconds left in the game and there still could still be a shot clock violation if a shot isnt off before there are .2 seconds left in the game.

Did you get all that? The last paragraph kind of gave me a headache, but it's basically a long-winded way of saying that, if you get down into tenths of a second, this is not only possible, but completely accurate the way the software for the clock is set up. Which, in the grand scheme of things, is just way too confusing for the casual fan.

The league should either change the way the clock counts down (from 24.9-0.9 to a less confusing 24.0 to 0.0), or add tenths of a second to the shot clock's display. Either of those options are far better than trying to explain this whole thing to your significant other during a telecast, who probably doesn't give a rat's ass about this stuff in the first place.

Despite all of the court cases, despite all of the pleading from the fans and despite the possibility of other ownership options stepping in to help keep the Supersonics in Seattle, a majority of National Basketball Association owners voted today to allow the team to relocate to Oklahoma City.

A majority of owners voted to approve the Sonics' move, according to Richard Peddie, president of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the NBA's Toronto Raptors.

Peddie didn't give a vote total as he emerged from the closed-door session in New York.

This is a pretty aggressive move by the NBA owners, but entirely shocking. Allowing Clay Bennett to truck the Sonics out of Seattle gives them ridiculous precedent (of the non-legal variety right now) to demand new facilities and upgrades for other teams in various cities simply by threatening relocation.

A rumor surfaced not too long ago that the NBA and NCAA were set to announce a new age limit for the NBA draft. I don't quite understand why the rumor gained any traction -- why would the NCAA be privy to the NBA's alleged plans to crack open an already-negotiated CBA? -- so I wasn't surprised when the rumor turned out to be bogus.

That said, the rumor did spur some discussion on the topic, and not surprisingly, Mark Cuban has an opinion: he wants to raise the age limit to "22 or when your class graduates from college." First and foremost, Cuban basically admits this is basically a pipe dream -- he openly admits he has "minimal influence on what is included" in the collective bargaining agreement. But for the sake of argument, Cuban explains:

Raising the minimum age is not about talent, its about maturity. Maturity matters to this league. Mature players are marketable players. Mature players generate far less strain on the league. Mature players can take care of themselves. Mature players understand the business of the NBA and how they can positively impact it to their own benefit.

I think he misses a huge point: mature players may be safer, but mature players also retire sooner. But his new standard, the league would lose out on four years of a player's athletic prime. LeBron James would be a rookie this year, Dwight Howard would just now be entering the draft, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony would be in their second seasons. That's hundreds of millions of dollars the league would be leaving on the table simply to avoid the occasional bad apple. (That said, under Cuban's system, all of those players would be stuck with their rookie contracts until they're 26-years-old, although I still think the league as a whole would lose out.)

Sherdog.com is reporting that Fedor Emelianenko, the Russian who is generally regarded as the world's best heavyweight mixed martial arts fighter, will take on former UFC heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia on July 19.

Emelianenko and Sylvia are both free agents, and they have apparently signed with Mark Cuban's organization for what could be the biggest MMA fight outside the UFC organization in American history. The fight is slated to take place at the American Airlines Center, which is also home to Cuban's Dallas Mavericks. Emelianenko tells Sherdog:

"[Sylvia] is a good fighter, a strong fighter, the former UFC heavyweight champion, which is important. I am looking forward to fighting him and training hard for this fight."

Sherdog reports that the fight is likely to be televised by Cuban's HDNet, although it's certainly a big enough fight that it could generate pay-per-view buys.

Sylvia, who is coming off a loss to Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira, will be one of the toughest opponents for Emelianenko, who has been criticized in the past for padding his record against inferior opposition. If Emelianenko wins he would likely take on Randy Couture, assuming Couture is eventually freed of his UFC contract, in a huge fight that would go a long way toward establishing Cuban's organization as a legitimate competitor for UFC.

I thought it was a little odd how the Warriors got blown out for the second consecutive night in Dallas, especially considering how fragile their playoff prospects are at the moment. I chalked it up to the unexpected return of Dirk Nowitzki, but Warriors' coach Don Nelson had another reason in mind: Dallas cheated.

"Wait a minute. I have a statement," Nellie said. "Avery Johnson had inside information. He used to play for the Golden State Warriors. He knew too much about our team and what we were going to run."

Obviously, Nellie was in the mood to joke around after this one, even as the team's playoff chances were slipping away. This was a verbal jab at Mark Cuban, who ridiculously made a similar claim about Nelson and the Warriors after they knocked the Mavericks out of the playoffs last season. There are still seven games left for Golden State to work themselves into a playoff spot, but all it's going to take is a couple more losses for Cuban to be assured of having the last laugh this year.

There's no real reason to be so obsessed with what goes on in this blog situation in Dallas. After all, it basically just boils down to a personal spat between Mark Cuban and Tim McMahon, depending on what you want to believe out of Cuban. However, when he offered to let anyone with a blog -- in the interest of not discriminating -- apply for a press pass and locker room access, well, I think we all knew hell was about to break loose.

Naturally, FireAvery.com blogger Greg Holland, who started his website because he was sick of Avery Johnson's coaching, applied for access. Why wouldn't he? Cuban said he would take any blog after all.

Upon hearing this I contacted Sarah Melton, the Mavericks Director of Basketball Communications, to inquire about getting a credential for the game Wednesday against Golden State. I received no response from Sarah and on Saturday Cuban made a post on Blog Maverick that to receive a credential bloggers should post a sample of their work as a comment on his blog and he would be the sole judge as to who receives a credential. Even though I consider this to be quite questionable, it his team and he can do what he wants regarding who has access to it, I posted a comment and awaited a reply.

Holland got two separate personal emails from Cuban. The first stated that FireAvery.com "hasn't been in existence long enough to qualify and for commonsense reasons, we wouldn't credential you even if it were." Fair enough, really. Holland responded by telling Cuban that he would not harass the player about their feelings towards the coach and merely wanted to cover the game in a journalistic capacity.

Floyd Mayweather, the world's best boxer, is making the media rounds this week to promote his upcoming appearance at Wrestlemania XXIV.

And today on ESPN First Take, Mayweather was asked the question a lot of fans want to know: Might he try mixed martial arts after he finishes up his wrestling gig? Mayweather has made public comments for at least a year saying that he thinks he could become a champion in MMA, and Mark Cuban has suggested that he'd make Mayweather an attractive financial offer if he wanted to join up with Cuban's fledgling MMA organization. So will Mayweather do it?

"It's possible," Mayweather said. "You know, we don't know." When asked to put the likelihood that he'll fight in mixed martial arts on a scale of 1 to 10, Mayweather put it at 5. So that clears up absolutely nothing.

Mayweather spoke highly of Cuban, saying that as a self-made millionaire who would like to make even more money, he enjoys picking the brain of self-made billionaires like Cuban. But he wouldn't commit one way or another to whether he might actually enter into that type of business relationship with Cuban.

I think Mayweather would have a better chance of success in MMA than UFC middleweight champ Anderson Silva would in boxing, but I seriously doubt either one is actually going to do it. When you're on the top of the world in one sport, would you really want to leave it for another?