For years, Mavs owner Mark Cuban has been praised for his accessability and eagerness to put himself in the shoes of the average paying customer. At least that’s how I’d spin it if I were Cuban’s P.R. director after the ugly scenes that followed Antoine Wright Failing To Tackle Carmelo Anthony. From the Denver Post’s Benjamin Hochman :
During the postgame chaos after Saturday’s Nuggets-Mavericks game, Dallas owner Mark Cuban had a brief but heated confrontation with Lydia Moore, the mother of Denver’s Kenyon Martin, who was seated near the tunnel that leads to the Mavs’ locker room.
Cuban said Sunday by e-mail that when he walked off the court, a fan was screaming about the Nuggets being “thugs,” so Cuban said to Martin’s mother: “That includes your son.”
According to Martin’s agent, Brian Dyke, Cuban spotted Moore amid numerous Nuggets fans and said, unprovoked, “Your son is a punk.” Regardless of what insult was stated, NBA spokesman Tim Frank said, “The situation on the floor postgame is being reviewed.”
Cuban said by e-mail he knew Martin’s mother, because after a previous game that Denver won, she had approached him and made trash-talk-type comments.
Though I’m sure Tim Thomas would agree with Cuban, it’s hard to imagine the Association turning a blind eye if, for instance, a player went after an opponent’s mom.