Dallas Mavericks owner mark cuban was fined $600k by the NBA for his tanking talk on Julius Erving's "House Call with Dr. J" podcast, and that's not all. Sports Illustrated ran an article that exposed the Hostile Work Environment of the Dallas Mavericks.

As the owner of the basketball team, it was an embarrassment for Cuban to allegedly have all the inappropriate shenanigans, pointed out by SI, go on under his nose.

But some former staff members said Cuban knew about everything.

According to the report, Cuban kept ex-Mavericks beat writer Earl K. Sneed employed, after multiple cases of domestic abuse. Also, former team president and CEO Terdema Ussery had a history of sexual misconduct allegations.

SI's month-long investigation

The month-long investigation included interviews with over a dozen current and former employees.

After the confessions were revealed to SI, it became clear that Ussery and Sneed were only the tip of the iceberg.

SI writers Jon Wertheim and Jessica Luther wrote in the report that the investigation painted "a picture of a corporate culture rife with misogyny and predatory sexual behavior: alleged public fondling by the team president; outright domestic assault by a high-profile member of the Mavs.com staff; unsupportive or even intimidating responses from superiors who heard complaints of inappropriate behavior from their employees; even an employee who openly watched pornography at his desk."

In regard to the shocking allegations, Dirk Nowitzki, the franchise player for the Mavs, did not hold back.

According to CBS Sports, after a Friday practice at USC, Nowitzki said to a reporter "It's very disappointing. It's heartbreaking. I'm glad it's all coming out. I was disgusted when I read the article, obviously, as everybody was. I was shocked about some of the stuff."

It's important to mention that the players on the Mavericks are not linked to any of the allegations.

The report was strictly about the office workers for the Mavs franchise. A female former staff member commented during the investigation: "I had hundreds of interactions with players and never once had an issue…they always knew how to treat people. Then I'd go to the office, and it was this zoo, this complete [explicit]-show. My anxiety would go down dealing with players; it would go up when I got to my desk.”

Cuban's response to SI

Cuban made it a point to state he did not know about the misconduct occurring within his organization. He claimed to leave the day-to-day operations of the business up to his CEO and HR staff. Although Cuban claims to be a very hands-on owner, he handles the basketball team, and its players more than the business itself.

In response to the report, SI confirmed he fired long-time VP of Human Resources Buddy Pittman for allowing these travesties to continue, and he finally terminated Sneed.

During a phone interview Cuban had with SI, he said "Terdema [Ussery] was hired before I got here, and the assertions you made were news to me. I talked to our HR person and again after these came up. And I was told there had been no complaints since I bought the team or even before that. None.

And based off of what I’ve read here, um, we just fired our HR person. I don’t have any tolerance for what I’ve read… I feel sick to my stomach.”

In the same phone interview with SI, Cuban mentioned in regard to the Sneed situation: “I didn’t know until I just looked into it again. Everything was handled by the Mavericks at that point, the CEO, and HR. I had no reason to doubt their handling of anything because none of this was communicated to me."

Cuban later clarified when he called SI on Tuesday that after reviewing his records he was aware of the situation and suggested Sneed should be put through a "domestic violence training class and then implement a zero-tolerance policy."

Once word got around that Cuban kept Sneed around as an employee while knowing about his history, social media did not have kinds things to say about the Mavs owner.

Tanking fine adds insult to injury

Even with this bomb dropped by Sports Illustrated, Cuban still had to address another issue from the NBA this time.

He made some controversial "tanking" comments as a guest on Julius Erving's "House Call with Dr. J" podcast. The "detrimental" comments led to Cuban getting fined $600,000.

According to Fox News, Mark Cuban said during the 30-minute interview with Erving: "I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night," Cuban said. "And here we are. We weren't competing for the playoffs. I was like, 'Look, losing is our best option.'" He added, "Adam [Silver, NBA Commissioner] would hate to be hearing that.

But at least I sat down, and I explained it to them. And I explained what our plans are going to be this summer, that we're not going to tank again. This is like a year and a half of tanking. That was too brutal for me."

Well, Cuban was right about Adam Silver not liking the comments. According to Fox News, Commissioner Adam Silver said the $600,000 fine was for "public statements detrimental to the NBA."

While we are used to hearing about Mark Cuban ranting on social media about President Donald Trump, or complaining about referees, and being a featured investor on "Shark Tank," Cuban was the topic of discussion on Twitter.

And this time it wasn't because of a presidential campaign tease for 2020.
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