Love and hate: the management of Mark Cuban
Where do you draw the line for passion?
Watching Mark Cuban’s behavior as owner of Dallas Mavericks, currently vieing for the NBA championships, is a love and hate fest for me. There’s are hints of goodness in him, but it’s lost in his choices of expression. He’s an echo of some tech-sector VPs and managers I’ve worked with: a core of good intentions, misguided by imaturity and self-centric egoism.
His passion and emotion about what happens to his team is real and wonderful to see: he’s not a guy in a suit, he’s personally invested in what happens (Seen at right wearing the jersey of a suspended player). It must be a boost for players to work for someone so visibly passionate and interested in what’s going on. Finding that kind of empathy from managers is rare in all businesses, including the NBA.
But the problem is how those emotions are translated into behavior. Cuban complains, vents, rants and draws more negative attention to himself as if working only from the Billy Martin & Bobby Knight (Mr. chair thrower) playbook. He deliberately violates rules, challenges not only officials but the league commisioner, showing little respect for the game. Drawing heat away from the team can be a sweet management move, but his behavior often seems more about his own feelings rather than driven by protecting the emotions of the people that work for him.
A noble man, with respect for himself, his team, and the game, would find an appropriate forum to vent his complaints, but Cuban lacks restraint: there seems little wisdom between his feelings and actions.
Instead of spending $1.5 million in fines over 5 seasons, he could pay to bring every single NBA referee to a training camp of his own design, or driven by a coallition of (other disgruntaled) coaches. He could find some positive way to both bring other people to support his view, and to effectively be an advocate for positive change. Why not found an NBA referee recruiting program? Work with other owners to boost their salaries to draw better talent? Regarless of whether his complaints are valid or not, there are more respectable ways for handling them.
But as of late, he makes it all too easy to pidgeon hole him as the spoiled rich kid who expects the world to circle behind his wake and give him what he wants when he cries. Whether he deserves this stereotype or not, being percieved in this way can’t possibly serve whatever his true ambitions for Dallas are.
I have a much more positive view of Mark Cuban… Do you read his blog? Maybe that’s where I get a different impression of his actions (obviously tinted by his own perceptions.)
Unlike Bobby Knight, Mark Cuban never, ever directs that ire at his own people.
That is a crucial difference, in terms of morale.
Cuban doesn’t disparage coaches or players, even former ones.
He rants against refs, the media, the league, the commissioner, opposing coaches and (infrequently) opposing players.
It’s an us-against-the-world thing and, judging by the fact he turned the team from a laughingstock (they had a .326 winning percentage from’90-91 to ’99-00) to possible NBA champions (.691 since 2000-01), that approach has worked.
You might think he’s a distracting nutcase, but the emperical evidence seems to indicate that his players are thrilled to have the most passionate owner in the league.
Joe: Totally agree he’s done a great job as owner. My problem is emulation: does he set an example that his team should follow within his team? I don’t think so. Should Josh Howard curse out Avery Johnson (his coach)? Should Dirk? Of course not. But for every great thing Cuban does he throws in antics that are totally unnecesary and actually defeat his cause.
I really want to be a Cuban fan – he does lots of things I admire, but also things he should be embarassed by.
Mark: Nope – don’t read his blog, which probably makes a huge difference. I know mostly what’s written about him + what I’ve seen in his interviews, which has obvious limitations :)
But I guess that’s part of my point – he makes it really easy for people not to listen to his good ideas because they can focus on all the drama and nonsense that makes for good press.
Joe: Yes you’re totally right about not aiming at his team. Makes a huge difference.
But there is a twist in there that bugs me: As a player I once had a coach who argued calls often, even when he was wrong. I once stood there while he yelled at the ref, earning a technical, disputing that I’d knocked the ball out of bounds (which I did). I had the strangest feeling watching him, in that as much as I loved his willingness to defend me, it seemed a betrayal of sticking up for someone if you stick up for them for the wrong reasons.
And I guess that’s what i see sometimes with Cuban – I’ve never seen him (or any NBA coach, manager, GM for that matter) complain when they’ve benefited from a ref’s bad call.
thx for the comments guys. I’ll spend some more time on Cubans blog and see if that changes my mind at all.
Mark admitted that when he’s with the crowd watching his team play basketball he’s normally behaving what a die hard fan will do for his team.
I think it’s just normal for Mark Cuban to react that way. His only advantage from ordinary fans out there is, he owned the Mavs and because of this he can storm the courtside anytime he wants in his liking.