How will Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban replace the bond he shared with Chandler Parsons now that the latter is a member of the Memphis Grizzlies?
By texting and emailing his new center, Andrew Bogut, of course.
Michael Lee of The Vertical spoke with Bogut about his summer—mostly about how he needed to represent the Australian national team in the Olympics after a whirlwind stretch of getting injured, losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals and being traded away from the Golden State Warriors so that they could make room for Kevin Durant.
That’s a lot for anyone to take, even professional athletes, who get paid large sums of money to deal with this seesawing uncertainty. Olympic play, though, is a touchy subject for Cuban, who has been honest about his unease with Mavericks players risking injury to represent their respective countries. His concerns are justified, and part of a bigger debate, but that hasn’t stopped him from being supportive of and befriending Bogut:
“If it wasn’t right, I’d put my hand up and I’m on a flight back home. It was good enough to play,” Bogut said, adding that Cuban “has been great. We have a great relationship via email and via text. The whole thing was, if you feel like you’re 100 percent, and you feel like your knee is a go, we’re going to support you. I couldn’t ask for a better organization to give me that confidence.”
This support for a new player is pretty cool of Cuban, and it’s good to hear that the transition from Golden State blue and gold to Dallas blue and white is going well for Bogut. He spent the last four years with the Warriors and morphed into one of the two defensive anchors, along with Draymond Green, for a championship favorite. That situation is no doubt tough to leave.
But if there’s one thing Cuban is good at (and he’s good at waaaay more than one, to be sure), it’s forging relationships with his players, both new and old alike. You rarely hear current and former players complain. Not even Rajon Rondo has come out and blasted him. That’s pretty impressive.
Now, if only we could know what Bogut and Cuban’s text convos consisted of…
