“Mark came along when this franchise really needed a shot in the arm.” That’s what Donnie Nelson told Tim MacMahon about Mark Cuban back in 2010. And he was right. The Dallas Mavericks were a basketball joke in the 1990s. The Mavericks averaged 24 wins per season from 1990-2000. Their highest win total was 40 games in 1999-2000. They posted back to back seasons in which they won 11 and 13 games. They were bad.
Then Cuban bought the team in 2000, and everything changed. The stories are well known. He renovated the dingy locker rooms, making them the best in the NBA.