FanHouse MarkCuban

FanHouse previews all 30 NBA teams in advance of the 2009-10 season.

It has become popular nowadays to take a movie or idea that was popular 20 years ago and revitalize it, tweaking it for a more modern touch, in order to attract both new and old audiences. It incorporates the base elements of the original and then features a modern "twist" in order to seem "hip."

In a lot of ways, that's the story of the 2009-10 Dallas Mavericks. They're not the same old Mavericks, but they're not the new Mavericks either.

During last season's playoff series between the Nuggets and the Mavericks, things got a little crazy between Kenyon Martin and Mark Cuban. After Game 3, Cuban said a fan yelled out that the Nuggets "were thugs," and he couldn't resist yelling over to Martin's mother, who was in the stands at the time, "That included your son."

Things got uglier after that, with Mavs' fans harassing some of the Nuggets' players' family members in the stands, and culminated with Martin yelling some obscenities in Cuban's direction, before the Mavs' owner attempted to end all of this by posting a late night apology on his blog.

It would probably have been best for everyone involved to leave this incident in the past, but Kenyon Martin, in an interview with Yahoo! Sports, couldn't resist getting in one more shot at Cuban.

On Friday, Warriors captain Stephen Jackson put himself on the trade block. By late Saturday, dots were being connected, and Jackson was being rumored to be a possibility for the Dallas Mavericks.

Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com reported that, separate from the Jackson rumor, Golden State coach Don Nelson had been talking to folks in Dallas about potential trades. Of course, Nelson's son Donnie runs the Mavericks front office, which would make this wholly uninteresting ... if not for the ongoing war between the elder Nelson and Mavs owner Mark Cuban, which makes this sort of aisle-reaching notable.

So, is it Jackson that Nelson is trying to peddle? Or is something else going on?

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The news that Mark Cuban forced German superstar Dirk Nowitzki to skip this summer's Eurobasket tournament was tempered by the fact that Cuban and Nowitzki brokered that deal last summer on the basis that Dirk has given his summers to the national team forever. But the case of Puerto Rican Maverick J.J. Barea isn't quite as tidy.

Barea had shoulder surgery in May, and feels as though he is back to 100%. He's eager to represent FIBA Americas host P.R., hoping to help his team win a place in the 2010 World Championships. But Cuban has denied Barea permission to participate. Barea told a Puerto Rican newspaper that the Mavs decree was "the worst news I've been given."

The demise of Affliction Entertainment will not simply go away after one press release. The fact of the matter is that they had a lot of partners involved. One of those partners was Mark Cuban's HDNet television network, which was scheduled to air the undercard of the now-canceled "Affliction: Trilogy."

FanHouse spoke to Cuban via e-mail about the fall of Affliction and his current relationship with the UFC. Check out the interview below.

The NBA has been in full-on arms race mode this summer, starting when Shaq packed his bags for "The Rock N' Roll Capital of the World." And it hasn't just been high-profile starters being snatched off the market by contenders. Teams are also focusing on depth as a way to gain an advantage. The Dallas Mavericks have been particularly active, re-signing Jason Kidd, acquiring Shawn Marion, and making a failed bid for Marcin Gortat. After the Magic surprisingly matched their offer for Gortat, it appeared the Mavericks had accepted fate and were content to head into the season as is.

Well, not so much. Saturday night Marc Stein (you may have heard his name once or twice) confirmed details of a one-year deal struck between the Mavericks and free agent forward Drew Gooden, which Gooden also confirmed via Twitter (it's so hot right now).

So what exactly does Gooden provide the Mavericks?

The Dallas Morning News did some enterprise reporting, acquiring transcripts from a two-day arbitration hearing between Mark Cuban and Don Nelson last summer. If you'll recall, Cuban withheld a substantial sum of wages owed to his former coach and GM on the basis that Nelson used info about the Mavs garnered during his one-year as an advisor to beat the Mavs in the fateful 2007 playoff series as coach of the Warriors.

Cuban sued Nelson on those grounds two years ago. The pair went to arbitration last year. Nelson won. Cuban still hasn't paid the $6 million, even though the sum amounts to little more than a pimple on Cuban's wealthy butt.

The transcripts, by the way, are as hilarious as you'd guessed ... and surprisingly more heartrending.

Near the start of the 2008-09 NBA season, word broke that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was being sued by the federal government on accusations of insider trading related to his sale of Mamma.com stock. Cuban defended himself vigorously, both in the courtroom and in the public eye, even though things looked pretty stacked against him.

But a federal judge dropped the Securities and Exchanges Commission's case against Cuban Friday, leaving the owner free and clear of punishment. (No Martha Stewartesque trip to a white-collar jail resort!)

One positive ramification of Jason Kidd ditching Dallas after 1-1/2 years in Maverick blue would have been that Mark Cuban and team management could finally have admitted that the Kidd-Devin Harris trade was an absolute mistake. But no, we're due three more years of Cuban barking in a hurricane, as Kidd has re-signed with Dallas through 2011-12. The Dallas Morning News reports the deal will pay Kidd $25 million over that span.

The Knicks had allegedly been offering $18 million over three years (the mid-level exception), which means the Mavericks paid an extra $2.3 million per season than anyone else realistically could for the 36-year-old guard. And, if you're keeping track, Harris, the now 26-year-old point guard Kidd replaced, the kid who is by most objective standards a superior player to Kidd, will be paid over the next three years a total of ... $25.3 million. Well done, Mavericks.

Mark Cuban is good for basketball and has been quite kind in terms of accessibility. Hey, he's even suggested FanHouse could sponsor his Mavericks in the future! But sometimes he bleats ideas and stances so unbelievably backwards you wonder how he ever got to where he's at.

Take his latest screed against sports blogs, for example. He bemoans the invention of rumors, which leads so-called "real reporters" to chase down dead ends. Cuban's solution to end this vicious cycle of, um, reporting work? To have ESPN create a blacklist of blogs which have reported inaccurate information, and which shall never be taken seriously again.