Blinksportsnews247
The Adelson-Dumont group bought the bulk of Mark Cuban’s Dallas Mavericks earlier this season, making them the most recent NBA team to change ownership. A two-part question about the Mavs’ new majority ownership group was posed to NBA commissioner Adam Silver at his news conference at All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis.
In addition to his thoughts on Cuban’s tenure as majority owner, he was questioned if the Mavs’ new ownership group’s ties with the Las Vegas Sands organisation portends a deeper engagement in the league’s relationship with gaming.
Although the Adelson-Dumont ownership group has ties to the casino world, Silver made it apparent that the NBA has no intentions to expand such ties. “On Adelson-Dumont ownership, no, I don’t think that signals any increase in gaming for the league,” Silver stated. “They have gaming interests, but those are independent of their interest in owning the team.”
“You kind of park your day job, as we always say,” Silver clarified. “It’s one of the reasons why we have in place the salary system we do, so that whatever you’re doing off the court is independent of the rules that you’re operating under, and all of our gaming rules will apply to the Adelson-Dumont families in the same way they do to other people.”
Given their stated desire to acquire a franchise, Mavs Governor Patrick Dumont’s passion in basketball has been evident for years. The global operations of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, encompassing Macau, Indonesia, and Singapore, are consistent with the NBA’s mission.
“Also, if you look at the governor Patrick Dumont’s lifelong interest in basketball, he’s somebody who’s been talking to the league for years about potential team ownership, about their level of interest,” Silver stated. “They conduct business worldwide. They are extremely focused on all of the wonderful qualities of the NBA that I discussed earlier.”
Cuban, who owned a majority of the Mavs for 24 years, is recognised for having advanced the league through his emphasis on technical advancements, which dates back to a significant technology summit held in San Francisco in February 2000. Silver has maintained a “very close” friendship with Cuban ever since. “Mark has had a tremendous influence on this league.
I have been a part of the league since its inception and have followed him during his whole ownership period. He gave us a heavy shove,” Silver remarked. “He was a technician when he arrived.
I believe it was around the year 2000, almost exactly. We started doing these technology summits in 2000 in San Francisco, as I mentioned on Friday. Over the years, I’ve developed a really close relationship with Mark, who I believe was a panellist on our inaugural one as well as one every year.
“Despite some of the back-and-forth with Mark and David [Stern] publicly and a little bit with me, there’s always been very respectful relationships,” Silver said. “I think he pushed us to be more — early days, not just more focused on technology but more of a marketing organisation was something that he always cared about.”
Another area where Cuban’s influence was recognised by Silver was the attention to detail he put into supporting the NBA’s officiating programme. The NBA recognises his influence in that field, despite several heated public discussions with the organisation over the years regarding related subjects. “Certainly on the basketball side, again, putting aside some of the public stuff, I know he’s cared a lot about the officiating programme,” Silver stated. “Again, we have collaborated behind closed doors. He’ll express his own views. Not that we’ve kept him happy the entire time. There are parts of the game that have annoyed him.
Blinksportsnews247
