July 07--Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been fined $25,000 for publicly confirming the team's free-agent deals with DeAndre Jordan and Wesley Matthews, as first reported by ESPN.
Players and teams are allowed to verbally agree to deals but are not allowed to publicly discuss them during the NBA moratorium period at the top of July, when the league's salary cap and luxury tax figures are being figured out.
After Jordan, a 26-year-old free agent center, agreed to a deal with the Mavericks on Friday, Cuban openly discussed the team's newest acquisitions in multiple interviews. In an interview with the sports-talk radio station The Ticket, Cuban said he sees Jordan as a franchise player.
"We see him as "Shaq-like" but never having been given the opportunity," Cuban told the radio show. "We told him if he came to the Mavs, he would be a focal point. He would grow into being a franchise player."
Jordan has previously spent his entire seven-season career with the Clippers, helping them go from the laughingstocks of the league to a team that was one win away from making an appearance in the Western Conference Finals last season.
