Maverick Team Owner Fined For Blog

The NBA fined a team owner $100,000 for the contents of his blog.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban published a blog entry entitled "How to improve NBA Playoff Officiating," Sunday. In a note above the post, he claims he wrote the piece before his team's 87-75 loss in Game 1 of the playoffs against the San Antonio Spurs.

Cuban criticized officials for not working back-to-back games as the players routinely do. He states that the playoffs are a reward system or stepping stone for promotions and recommends ranking officials to qualify for playoffs.

"Giving less qualified officials an opportunity to officiate playoff games as a reward gives the official a nice attatboy, but it risks the quality of our product," Cuban wrote. "It makes absolutely no sense to do it the way it is currently done. If the league want the best officiating in every game, only use the best officials. Anything less cheats us all."

Since Cuban is an owner, he could not be dooced for his blog, as employees sometimes are.

ESPN reported the fine.

A page on the NBA Web site describes Cuban as "one of the most innovative and controversial figures in all of sports."

"At the very least, Cuban is a fascinating individual who does not hold back in letting people know his opinions about everything from basketball to business," a description of an interview with The Arizona Republic's David Leibowitz states.