Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban issued an emotional apology for presiding over a toxic corporate work environment.
Here's Part 1 of my interview with Mark Cuban, on just how he let things get so bad with the Mavericks: "There's no way to downplay it and if someone showed me this from another company and asked me to read it – I would say you can't make a bigger mistake." pic.twitter.com/toR4ZbrdAZ
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) September 20, 2018
Cuban says he has “no excuse” for allowing such a culture to fester.
Here's Part 2 of my interview with Mark Cuban, where he says he has "no excuse" for some of the decisions he made in letting down the women who worked for the Mavericks, and whether Adam Silver asked him to sell the team. pic.twitter.com/mxnC4zKxCg
— Rachel Nichols (@Rachel__Nichols) September 20, 2018
The Mavs were the subject of an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment and violence against women in the organization.
Per ESPN:
MARK CUBAN: “First, just an apology to the women involved. The women that in a couple cases were assaulted and not just to them, but their families, because this is not something that just is an incident and then it’s over — it stays with people, it stays with families, and I’m just sorry I didn’t see it. I’m just sorry I didn’t recognize it. And I just hope that out of this, you know, we’ll be better, and we can avoid it, and we can help make everybody just smarter about the whole thing.”
You run an NBA franchise where you’ve talked a lot publicly about how you know everything that goes on there. You did know of a few of these isolated incidents. But even the best case scenario of you not knowing, the best version of it is that women in your office felt unsafe coming to work, that they made official complaints to human resources, that they were threatened, they were not promoted. If you just didn’t know any of this, how do you explain that?
CUBAN: “I mean, I didn’t know, and I don’t have an explanation. You know I can give you lots of reasons, but they don’t matter. It was my responsibility, and I have to be accountable for it.”
I think it’s hard for some people to reconcile because you are respected as a smart businessman. You have a television show, and your billing on that television show is that you’re a great businessman. So how do you match that up with what you’re telling me here?
CUBAN: “In hindsight, it was staring me right in the face, and I missed it. I wasn’t as focused on the business as I should’ve been. You know when I talk about being actively involved, I could tell you every salary of everybody, every NBA player over the last 15 years. I would talk to Rick and our coaches over the years, and be there at practices, and be there on the basketball side, day in day out live it. If I was in our business office five times in 15 years, that was a lot, you know. It’s embarrassing to say. There were people who I just hadn’t met and hadn’t talked to.”
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