Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavericks, found out yesterday night that the NBA season will be suspended after Vice President Scott Tomlin showed him the email regarding the rest of the season and the coronavirus.
“This is crazy. This can’t be true,” the Mavs owner told ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi during an in-game interview, summing up his initial reaction. “I mean, it’s not within the realm of possibility. It seemed more like out of a movie than reality.”
During the rest of the suspended season Cuban have asked everyone to remain in Dallas until further notice, Cuban also said that the team activities are still available to them, practicing, taking care of a player’s injury, and other non-game routines.
“I was very specific as was [Carlisle] to say who you talk to is very important,” Cuban said. “If bringing people in because you have downtime, no. That’s not going to work. You have to be accountable to the people you are dealing with and who you know. For your own personal safety and for everybody else’s. This is not a vacation. This is effectively self-quarantining because it’s our responsibility to be vigilant.”
Last thing he said was just concerned not for the game of basketball but just for his family, his mom, and everything going around.
“It’s stunning, but we are where we are,” Cuban said. “We have to be smart in how we respond. This is people’s lives at stakes. This isn’t about basketball, this isn’t about the Mavericks. This isn’t about when do we start, do we start? Or how do we start? This is a pandemic, a global pandemic where people’s lives are at stake. I’m a lot more worried about my kids and my mom who is 82 years old — in talking to her and telling her to stay in the house — than when we play in our next game.”
