Despite all the fines, disagreements and backhanded insults, Mark Cuban has a soft spot in his heart for David Stern.
“I love David,” Cuban said during a Tuesday interview on NBA TV. “I mean, David and I have banged heads a couple times, [but] the truth be told, David Stern made me. Nobody knew who Mark Cuban was until he started fining the hell out of me and sent me to work at Dairy Queen. So he made my job of selling tickets a lot easier.”
“David took us internationally. Even when I came in, I wasn’t a big proponent of international, and David was there. David was a big proponent of digital — the Internet — [and] I remember sitting down talking to him. Even before I bought the team [in Jan. 2000], he invited me in to talk about streaming and the Internet. I helped him set up his first Twitter account. He was always open-minded about expanding into new areas and you really have to respect that.”
“Despite the fact that we disagreed on a lot of things, we really agreed on far more. I’ll miss him. I really like David.”
Mark Cuban and David Stern are very similar in a lot of ways. They both understand business and will go to extreme measures at times to accomplish their goals.
