Cuban

Question: Oh, and, real quick, will we ever see Shawn Bradley again?
Cuban: Never.
Q: Never? Like not even in a movie or something?
Cuban: Never.

This was both a happy question and a sad question for me. Having grown up the DFW Metroplex I grew up with those sports teams. I am a Dallas Cowboys fan. When Hockey isn't in a lock-out, strike, walk out or work stoppage, I am a Dallas Stars fan. I am a Rangers fan (although, I still hold resentment against them for switching from Red to Blue). And I am, oh yes I am, I am a Dallas Mavericks fan.

When Cuban bought the Mavericks, they became a whole new team overnight. Without changing a thing, they went on their longest winning streak in memory at the time. No longer did they consider activating the Mavs Man to the active roster. Things changed in an instant. And they've been good ever since.

However, over the past few years there has been a notable problem with the Mavericks at center. Shawn Bradley, the Praying Mantis, would lead the league in blocked shots, but wouldn't give much else. You could always go inside on the Mavs, it wasn't any big secret. Shawn didn't rebound, he would rarely take a shot (although, admittedly, he wasn't too bad when he did). I cannot tell you the number of times that my dad would tell me that a 7'6 man (NBA stats) with 3 foot arms (Our estimation) should get 15 rebounds a game by accident, just by standing there.

The collective intelligence of the area wanted somebody, anybody there. Granted, there wasn't really any free agents or anybody that you could trade for, but they wanted Shawn out of there. He would remain for years.

A culture of Bradley rose. Bradley was a joke. The way Leno and Letterman poke fun at Paris Hilton or Michael Jackson the local media outlets would poke fun at Bradley (well, maybe not in the same way). Looking back, I can't help but to feel a bit sorry for Shawn. But at the time I didn't. Any time my brother or I could make a joke about an extremely tall, thin and uncoordinated white guy, we seized the opportunity.

Then one day everything changed. We knew it was coming, but never anticipated it being so soon. Everybody was well familiar with Shawn Bradley's contract - it was expensive and it was for years and years and years. Nobody anticipated that one day it would all be done.

The Monogamous Mormon Mantis had retired so that he could have a chicken farm in Utah.

It was the most ridiculous reason to leave the NBA that I had ever heard of. Could this be real? Are they serious? It was true - he was gone.

The aftermath has been alright. Sure. The Mavericks haven't ever acquired a Shaq or a Yao Ming (although, I liked Wang Zhizhi before all his international incident problems came forth). Diop is currently getting some boards and playing pretty well, but, all in all, it's not the same. Bradley may not have had what we wanted on the floor, but he added in his own way.

So, yes, Basketball was discussed tonight.

Mark Cuban received the best entrance so far - an incredibly rare clip of him acting playing "Macho Mark" from Talking about Sex was played, then Life's been Good by Joe Walsh.

Mark Cuban is, well, he's a lot like you what you see on TV. He's laid back, very cool, but he knows what he's talking about, and confident in himself and his beliefs. He's driven, and he has a certain obsessiveness about him - when he wants to achieve something, when he wants to learn about something he dives into it. He learns what he can, he does what he can to find out how to get what he wants. I need to do this sort of thing more.

I took a lot from Cuban. Being from the area, I've watched his bio's on TV and him tell his story over and over (much like Superman). Tonight he spoke about it, but he was able to speak without an editor. There's more to it. Mark has an incredible entrepreneurial sense about him and a business head about him. One minute he's talking about the positive aspects that Dirk Nowitzki brings forth as a German basketball player then he's explaining his problems with how the current stock market operates. Even those decisions he makes from a business or economical standpoint (such as the Steve Nash decision), this is often forgotten.

There are two real lessons that I took from Cuban - "You only have to be right once". As soon as he said it, I really began to understand it. I'm used to the opposite in terms of warnings about things, usually accompanied by stories of drinking and driving or somebody doing something stupid. As much as you can kill yourself by being wrong once, you can make things happen by being right once. Cuban also emphasized effort, basically citing it as everything. As much as I believe it, I can't hear it enough.

Cuban was a lot of fun, from answering questions about basketball, to a little bit about investments and even talking about film a couple of times.

Dinner afterwards was pretty cool, too. Jack was there, too

I have to say that it's odd that this week and last have been basketball-centric when the last movie I worked on was about a guy who hated Basketball.

Ah well. Dirk for MVP.
(And for the record, I would pay to see Shawn Bradley in a movie)
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