The Dallas Mavericks owner cleaned house around the trade deadline of all his troublesome African American players and no one said a word about it.
Mark Cuban caught a little heat for his comments about American basketball players stating "youth players, and the NBA, would be better off if children in America learned how to play in Slovenia, and that Americans learn how to taunt and put together mixtapes".
Now one could take the lighter route to this comment and say that Mark was saying that American players have more distractions around them that keeps them from just focusing on their skills and being able to play the game of basketball. That by being an American athlete they have access to so many ways to make it to the pros leading them to possibly being more hype than good. If that was solely the merit of his comments, there is a great chance Mark could be dead on. It is very true that players overseas do not have the luxuries of American athletes so therefore their hunger and desire to make it to the pros is predicated to their skill and for some a necessity to have a better life. This makes them that much more desirable than the catered to American athlete.
However, Mark's additive comments about players in America being more focused on taunting and mixtapes made his comments seem more racially charged. It is no secret that majority of the NBA is made up of African-American athletes. It is no secret that majority of the NBA's Hall of Fame is made up of African-American athletes. Along with that if one were to watch the NBA draft year by year it is progressively filled with African-American athletes representing the bulk of American athletes available for the NBA. So when you put all of those things together it sums up to Mark's comments being targeted towards the African-American athlete being the ones who are too busy working on their mixtapes than being in the gym.
Furthermore it can be proven by the fact that his previous 1st round pick in the 2017 NBA draft, Dennis Smith Jr. (who is African American) became cast aside once Mark was able to draft Luka Doncic (who is Slovenian) in the 2018 NBA draft. Along with that DSJ, Wesley Matthews and Deandre Jordan were all traded for Kristaps Porzingis of the New York Knicks. Then Mark capped it off with sending his last big name African-American athlete on his roster being Harrison Barnes to Sacramento. So by cleaning house Mark affirmed the backlash he received about the transparency of his real intentions by his statements.
Now for Harrison he joins a young and upcoming team, where he is the accomplished and seasoned veteran who can make his mark, while not being too old to be a major contributor like Vince Carter and Zach Randolph were. He now has the opportunity to go back and destroy the Mavericks in competition as often as he can and prove that he was worth the contract Dallas signed him to in Sacramento while helping them with a late playoff push.
However the concerns that Harrison, DSJ, Wesley and Jordan all vocally expressed amongst others in the NBA in regards to Mark's comments were validated. Along with that somehow Cuban does not become Donald Sterling in this situation, which is even more of why Cuban is the NBA's ultimate Maverick when it comes to NBA owners.
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