With memories of Pau Gasol’s broken foot suffered during the ’06 World Championships at the least in the back of his churning mind, Mavs owner Mark Cuban will wait for Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki to return from the Beijing Summer Games, hopeful that neither will get hurt while on his payroll. “I hate the fact that we lie to ourselves and pretend this is about representing country,” Cuban tells the Dallas Morning News’ David Moore. “It’s not. It’s about money.”
“It’s not that I don’t like the idea of them representing their countries,” Cuban said by e-mail. “If the Olympics were truly a nationalistic endeavor built on sport and part of the public domain, I would be willing to take risk and support their playing. What I don’t like is that we lie to ourselves and pretend that the Olympians represent our country.”
“They don’t. They have taken relatively low paying jobs working for the Olympics, who in turn sell the broadcast and marketing rights for billions of dollars in profits, all the while creating enormous risk for those of us who pay them for their day jobs that support their families. It’s amazing how players who are free agents won’t participate, but those with guaranteed contracts will.”
Is Cuban disappointed that Nowitzki and Kidd have chosen this path or does he understand?
“I understand completely, I just disagree,” Cuban said. “As I mentioned, to me, the disturbing part is not just the financial risk we incur, with minimal upside, it’s the hypocrisy of it all.
“Can’t we just call it the GE Olympic Team?”
The first person who’d like to make a pitch for Jerome James on Team Wendy’s is officially excused from the CSTB comments for the next several ours.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one appalled by the Olympic hypocrisy. My hometown of Vancouver is bending over backwards at taxpayer expense to throw a 2 week party destined to drive the locals nuts and put housing costs further beyond the stratosphere.
Supporters of the games seem to be driven by some kind of national pride, or a sense of valor. I fail to see how the games endear any lasting benefit to anyone beyond the financiers of the ridiculous infrastructure requirements and the power mad IOC.
WeWanttheFunk, you are forgetting one important thing- THESE COLORS DON’T RUN.
Mark is ignoring the fact that tournaments involving national countries tend to drive up player value. If Mike Redd has a good Olympics I fully expect his trade value to go up, same for a few of the lower level guys on the team. It also can build fans for the Mavericks if Dirk has an awesome tournament (or Kidd). The reality is that the NBA needs the exposure in the rest of the world (and in the US frankly) and having these players exposed to huge audiences is a good thing for the league in a revenue generating way.
Mark appears to be a bit shortsighted here but I get where he is coming from. Perhaps Basketball should start holding their own world cup and make the Olympics u-23 like soccer does. The NBA is in a prime position to generate a shit load of revenue off of something like that.
gregg, what happens if mike redd shits the proverbial bed during the olympics? what if dirk blows a game for his team? does redd’s trade value go down? does the mav’s fan base wither?
or better yet, what if they both blow out their knees while playing in the olympics?
and fuck, i forgot the whole reason i clicked on the comments thing. the “h” is missing in hours.
I think the “blow out the knee” thing KT mentioned is why we haven’t seen a basketball world cup yet. Which sucks because 1) a u-23 Olympics for basketball would be amazing and 2) because a basketball World Cup in which everything else (read: NBA moneymaking) stops for a few weeks and the best players play each other would be incredibly amazing. Well, for me. Maybe not for, like, Zyrdrunas Ilgauskas if he injures himself.
I don’t disagree with Cuban but he’s the last guy that I need a lecture from about being a money whore. Wasn’t he on a reality tv show a’ la Donald Trump?