Billionaire and former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has filed a legal complaint, alleging Mavericks majority owner Patrick Dumont engaged in “adversarial business practices” and is seeking a judge to compel the team's executives to disclose details of the franchise's new arena plans.
The Mavs had planned to develop a site in North Dallas that housed a shopping mall. The 104-acre site, called Valley View, would include a new arena with a practice facility, along with entertainment plans around it.
According to the USA Today, Cuban said in the filing that he wants information on "the financing of a new Dallas Mavericks arena at Valley View and the exploration and identification of locations for the new arena, among other things."
Cuban also said that he was “contractually entitled to participate” in the Valley View deal.
Despite selling the majority stake in the team, Cuban still owns 27% of the Mavericks and claims that he should still be in charge of basketball operations. The billionaire sold his stake in the team in 2023 to Miriam Adelson and Dumont, who is Adelson's son-in-law. Adelson's husband, Sheldon, who was the founder, former chairman, and CEO of the casino company Las Vegas Sands, died in 2021.
Cuban claims the agreement, according to the petition, was made via a handshake deal. Instead, Cuban claims that Dumont gave Nico Harrison that job in charge of player personnel. Harrison was then fired as general manager in November partly because of bungling of the blockbuster trade that sent Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
