Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was doing everything he could not to cast a stone in the direction of Knicks owner James Dolan. He carefully worded his answers to questions about the Knicks. He even weaved in some compliments for the Garden chairman.
It didn't matter. When one measures the actions Cuban has taken with the Dallas front office against the recent inaction of Dolan here, it's obvious he wouldn't tolerate what is going on if he owned the Knicks. It's not the boos or the chants for firings or any of that.
"Losing is always intolerable," he said.
"(If) you get to the point where you own a team, it's not about 10 more bucks here or there," Cuban added. "It's about winning."
Cuban bought the Mavericks during the 1999-2000 season. In his first four full seasons as owner, Dallas won 53, 57, 60 and 52 games and made one trip to the conference finals. Even so, he saw it was time to make a change at the top. Don Nelson was gone. Avery Johnson became the head coach. Within two seasons, the Mavs were playing the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals.
"We went from Nellie to Avery Johnson," he said. "Are you going to be successful with what you have? You just try to make the best decision you can. It's not easy." (...)
