In the ongoing “club vs. country” debate that rages through soccer, basketball and other sports, Mark Cuban has long been clearly on the side of the clubs. Which makes sense because he owns one. He pays a lot of money, hypothetically, to a tall German forward who went and played for his national team this summer and now is sitting out at least four games to get his knee and the rest of him right.
With the Olympics coming up in London this summer, you can bet you’re going to hear a lot more of this from Mark Cuban and others over the coming months. Here is his latest rant on the subject, told to ESPNDallas.com.“It’s just the epitome of stupidity that we would allow ourselves to be used so other corporations” -- as Cuban calls the Olympics -- “can make tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars,” Cuban said. “There’s some guys sitting at the Olympic headquarters going, ‘Those dumb-asses, we’re taking all their best guys for nothing.’ ”
Cuban knows he’s unlikely to bring change to the system, but he said he will continue “fighting so that we’ll pull out.”
We can pick apart the problems with Cuban’s argument — starting with that he does not own these employees and if they wish to use their off-season to play for their country for pride and to promote their brand (to pump up their personal corporations) they should be free to do so — but it’s all kind of moot. Because David Stern isn’t buying it. Stern knows he has to grown the game and the NBA brand globally and the Olympics are a major stage to do that. Stern gets the big picture.
Cuban won’t have to worry about Dirk Nowitzki playing in the Olympics in London — Germany did not qualify.
Of course, if his master plan of finding a way to land Deron Williams and Dwight Howard as free agents pans out, he will be sweating out the Olympics like the most patriotic of American hoop fans. Just for a different reason.