Mark Cuban admits consequential Mavericks blunder that fans will never forget

Former Dallas Mavericks majority owner and current minority owner Mark Cuban sold his majority stake of the team in 2023, and while he doesn't regret selling the team, he rues who he sold the team to. Cuban shockingly sold the Mavericks to the Adelson and Dumont families during the middle of the 2023-24 season, months before making the NBA Finals, and he wishes he could take this decision back.

Dallas' decline without Mark Cuban

Everything has changed since Cuban's decision to sell the team.

While Dallas made their third NBA Finals appearance in June 2024, the same season that the Adelsons bought the team, the Mavericks look completely different now than they did less than two years ago.

Of the 15 players who were on standard contracts during the NBA Finals, only five are still on the roster. The biggest change, of course, is that their former superstar, Luka Doncic, is now on the Los Angeles Lakers.

Nico Harrison decided to trade Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis a little less than a year ago, and this decision worked out so poorly that Dallas fired Harrison after just 11 games this season. They also traded Davis at the trade deadline for expiring contracts and draft picks.

How Nico Harrison doomed the Mavericks

Cuban laments hiring Harrison as the team's general manager, just like he second-guesses selling the team to the Adelsons and Patrick Dumont, and none of the turmoil that Mavs fans have been through over the last 13 months would've happened if Cuban hadn't sold the team.

Cuban opened up about selling the team during an episode of the "Intersections" podcast, and Mavericks fans will never be able to forget his decision to sell the Mavericks, along with everything that came along with it.

"I don’t regret selling," Cuban said. "I regret who I sold to. I made a lot of mistakes in the process, and I’ll leave it at that."

Cuban openly stating this, despite Dumont still being the team's majority owner, is definitely a major development, as they both hold the keys to Dallas' future in building around Cooper Flagg.

Both owners were in attendance for Monday's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Cuban sat in his normal seat next to the Mavericks' bench while Dumont sat near half-court, per usual. Dallas lost their 51st game of the season with both owners watching, and they're well on their way to picking in the lottery for the third time in four seasons.

This is not the state that anyone expected the team to be in after watching Dallas reach the NBA Finals in 2024, and unfortunately for them, this downward spiral all started with Cuban selling the team. Dumont obviously wishes that he had never agreed to trade Doncic, but if Cuban had never sold the team, that would've never been a possibility.