Indeed, the Mavs have traded for more white guys as centerpieces of a deal than any other team. So the excessive signings of terrible white players under his ownership had to be, at least partially, a Cuban call. And since buying the team, Cuban has always blurred the line between superfan and shadow GM. Much of the blame can be laid at the door of Donnie Nelson, who was the team’s general manager from 2005 until he left the team in June last year. ![]() No, it’s their seemingly unquenchable thirst for terrible white players that sinks them. While there are valid reasons to push back against that philosophy – after all, the US have won seven of the last eight men’s Olympic tournaments and the other winner was Argentina – it does have coherence, even if it’s wrong.īut the problem with Cuban’s Mavericks isn’t their penchant for white superstars – if every white guy they acquired was as good as Nash, Nowitzki and Doncic they’d be perennial champions. If you look at the basketball education of kids starting at 11 years old in Europe and particularly Slovenia which is basketball oriented,” said Cuban in 2019. European players “actually learn to play the game. They also have one black European player, Frank Ntilikina (France). And all four of the white players on the Dallas’s active roster this season are European: Doncic (Slovenia), Kristaps Porzingis (Latvia), Maxi Kleber (Germany) and Boban Marjanovic (Serbia). This explains some of the racial balance of the current team: European players are usually white and American players are usually black. He believes European players, who usually enter the professional ranks at an earlier age, have a better basketball education than American players. Some argued that the Mavericks should have picked a black superstar, Trae Young, over Doncic in the 2018 draft but Cuban’s preference for European players has a certain logic. Although the Mavericks have a dubious history of toxic workplace culture when it comes to female employees, Cuban has thrown his support behind Black Lives Matter and has appointed a black CEO (Cynthia Marshall), president (Terdema Ussery), head coaches (Jason Kidd and Avery Johnson) and general manager (Nico Harrison) during his time in Dallas. It’s tempting to put this down to racism or at least unconscious bias on the part of the Mavericks and their owner, Mark Cuban. ![]() The Mavericks, in the literal sense, do not look like the rest of the league. In more than half of those 15 seasons there were at least four white players, not to mention at least two starting white players. In 15 of the last 21 Mavs seasons, there were three or more white players on the 12-man active roster. Yet one franchise has often kept the dream of mediocre white guys alive: the Dallas Mavericks. It seems every decade, the white NBA player becomes less relevant. He does both ten times over.In 2020, the NBA was 74.2% black and 16.9% white. Teams need players like Pinson to provide camaraderie and improve morale. Pinson likely will not see much of an expanded role on the court next season, although that could change with Brunson gone, but what he provides is invaluable. ![]() The team wore them like a badge of honor. The NBA took notice and fined the Mavericks multiple times during the playoffs for bench decorum violations. The whole bench took on his approach to sideline behavior. He rarely sat–if he ever sat–during games and would cheer on his teammates from the sidelines. He was not eligible to play in the postseason because he was a two-way player, but that did not stop him from having an impact. Pinson joined Dallas last season on a two-way contract and appeared in 19 games during the regular season, playing spot minutes. Theo Pinson, the leader of the Mavericks’ raucous bench, is staying in Dallas on a one-year deal.
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