Reformed Mark Cuban gives Donald Carter the honour to receive the Championship Trophy - NBA Update
Mark Cuban is an eccentric personality and he certainly doesn’t mid to ruffle a few feathers while expressing his piece if mind. Renowned as one of the most outspoken and aggressive owners in NBA, on Sunday after the Dallas Mavericks knocked down the Miami heat in the NBA Finals, Cuban showed his other, a more humble side to the world.
When the game 6 finished Cuban went to Donald Carter, the first owner of the Mavs, who formed the team back in 1980 and asked him to receive the championship trophy from the NBA Commissioner David Stern. Carter doing his signature cowboy hat was overwhelmed with the honour. He later said "Mark is class. He's the only guy that I've ever known that loves basketball more than my wife. He's the only person. He has been such class and he just wanted to take it through the progression we started and he took it to the finish line and he really has. And he did it with class."
Cuban has laid low throughout the course of the playoffs. He switched to the silent mode after Dallas won the western conference quarter-finals against Portland Trail Blazers, and more astonishingly, when the Mavs swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the semis. In that series, many people were expecting that the verbal jabs will re-ignite once Cuban gets Phil Jackson and forward Ron Artest in sight. However, Cuban remained silent against the Lakers, even after the Mavs swept them. The trend continued against the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. After successfully making into the NBA Finals, Cuban finally came out in the open. However, he said one thing only – the Mavs ain’t finished yet.
He then refused to give any interviews in the Finals. Even after being asked repeatedly, he didn’t make any comments during the Mavs and Heat contest, which was pretty remarkable bearing in mind the 2006 NBA Finals episode against Miami when Mark was fined $250,000 by NBA Commissioner for causing the brawl.
During the victory celebrations of the Mavs the triumphant Dallas coach Rick Carlisle approved the fact that he convinced Cuban to let the players and team performance do the talking.
Carlisle said, "We kind of mutually talked about it. He was great about it. He understood and he knew it was the right thing. ... Mark's a much more humble person than a lot of people want to believe. His heart is always in the right place. It gives us the tools to succeed. He was extremely disciplined during this run and it helped us."
Giving Donald Carter the opportunity to lift the trophy after the win, added a silver lining to a different, yet perfect post season for Cuban.
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