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After NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last weekend that the bust is the worst “in recent memory,” Mark Cuban believes he and the league office should “accept it.”
The NBA recently fined the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers, who have a combined record of 33-78, $500,000 and $100,000, respectively, for sitting healthy players, and Silver said last weekend that he is considering “every possible remedy” to combat it.
But Cuban, who has admitted to failing in the past, posted on
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Mark Cuban, minority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, watches the game between the Dallas Wings and the Indiana Fever during the first quarter at the American Airlines Center. (Jerome Miron/Imagn Images)
“The NBA… has been wrong to think that fans want to see their teams compete every night with a chance to win. That has never been the case,” Cuban began in a lengthy post on X.
“When I came into the NBA, they thought they were in the basketball business. They’re not. They’re in the business of creating fan experiences. Few can remember the score of the last game they saw or attended. They can’t remember the dunks or the shots. What they remember is who they were with. Their family, their friends, a date. That’s what makes the experience special.
“Fans know their team can’t win every game. They know only one team can win a ring. What the fans (sic) who care about their team’s record want is hope. I hope they get better and have a chance to compete for the playoffs and then maybe a ring. The only way to get close to that is through the draft. And trades. And cap space. You have a better chance of improving through all 3, when you give up.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban during a press conference after Luka Doncic signed a contract extension (REUTERS/Borut Zvulovic)
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“We didn’t go down often. Only a few times in 23 years, but when we did, our fans appreciated it. And that got us to where we could improve, trading to get Luka. [Doncic] and improve our team.
“The NBA should care more about the fan experience than the tank. They should care more about pricing fans outside of games than they do about the tank. You know, who cares less about the tank, a parent who can’t afford to take their 3 kids to a game and buy them a jersey of their favorite player. The tank isn’t the problem. Affordability and quality of game presentation are.”
With a stacked NBA Draft class, it appears more teams are competing for better chances at the first pick. And while the lottery had good intentions of not guaranteeing the worst team the best pick, the luck of the draw has led to more and more teams that know they can’t compete for a championship competing for what they hope will be their next chance at one.
“If teams are manipulating their performance to get higher draft picks, even in a lottery, then the question is… are they really the worst performing teams?” Silver said during NBA All-Star weekend. “It’s not clear to me, for example, that the 30th-performing team is much worse than the 22nd-performing team, particularly if you have incentives to perform poorly to get a better draft pick…
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver speaks during the press conference at the NBA Emirates Cup Final at T-Mobile Arena on December 16, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Kirby Lee/Image Images)
“The league is 80 years old. It’s time to take a fresh look at this to see if it’s an outdated way of doing it.”
