The Olympics have picked up with many NBA stars now competing for their home countries. Of the many players competing, one you won’t see is Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic, as his country of Slovenia didn’t qualify. If you ask Mavs’ minority owner Mark Cuban, that’s a good thing.
After Elon Musk commented on a post on X reprimanding the copyright strikes of Olympic videos by the International Olympic Committee, Mark Cuban responded by saying “The Olympics are a business. First and last. I’ve always been against NBA players playing in the Olympics. We should put on our own World Cup and treat the Olympics like Soccer does.”
This is far from the first time Cuban has publicized this stance, posting links to blogs as far back as 2004 saying the NBA should host their own international event, allowing for its players to enter with their countries, while the Olympics return to having amateur players.
Some of the reasons Cuban details in these blog posts include the NBA teams paying the salaries while the Olympics provides nothing, losing advertising and exclusivity of their athletes, and players being worn down coming into the season because of international play.
What Cuban suggests is an NBA-sponsored World Cup. FIBA hosts a World Cup every four years, usually the year before the Olympics, but it has no affiliation with the NBA. For owners like Cuban, who want to market and showcase their team’s superstars as much as possible, getting this event to be hosted by the NBA would be a media rights treasure chest.
Cuban is quick to say that he commends players for wanting to play for their home country, but he saw Luka Doncic push through injuries throughout the NBA playoffs and into the NBA Finals and instead of resting after the season, go directly into international competition to try and qualify for the Olympics. Cuban and the rest of the Mavs’ ownership group have a lot of money and assets invested into Doncic and selfishly don’t want to lose him to a major injury in international play. He also believes that moving to professionals in 1992 was the right move at the time, especially given the impact the “Dream Team” had on international basketball, but it’s time to protect the merchandise.