Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined US$600,000 for public statements detrimental to the NBA, league commissioner Adam Silver announced on Wednesday.
On Monday’s episode of the House Call with Dr. J podcast, Cuban said it was in the Mavericks’ best interest to lose games on purpose and improve their chances of landing a higher draft pick.
“I’m probably not supposed to say this, but ... I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are ... we weren’t competing for the playoffs. I was like: ‘Look, losing is our best option,’” Cuban said. “Adam would hate hearing that, but I at least sat down and I explained it to them. And I explained what our plans were going to be this summer, that we’re not going to tank again.”
“This was, like, a year-and-a-half of tanking, and that was too brutal for me, but being transparent, I think that’s the key to being kind of a players’ owner and having stability,” he added.
Under the current format, the team with the worst record has a 25 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall draft pick, followed by 19.9 percent for the second-worst record and 15.6 percent for the third.
The league’s board of governors in September last year approved changes that, starting next year, would see the three worst regular-season teams each have a 14 percent chance of winning the lottery.
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