You can forgive Mark Cuban if he had a little beef with Dwyane Wade, he watched the 2006 NBA Finals like the rest of us. Wade attacked and drove against Dallas and was rewarded with trip after trip to the free throw line. The aggressor usually gets the calls in the NBA and Wade won an NBA title with that mantra.
But Cuban has matured and moved past it. He’s good with Wade now (I supposed winning his own title in 2011 over the Heat probably helped with that).
Here is what Cuban told Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News.
“Not anymore,” Cuban said when asked if he dislikes Wade. “At the beginning, I did because I think he thought he was entitled to everything that happened in that (2006) series. But it’s been eight years. I mean, I take a little bit of joy in games where he doesn’t go to the free throw line. But I like D-Wade now. He’s a guy who does a lot of good things off the court and I have to respect that.
“But if you’d have asked me eight years ago, it would have been a different answer….
“I give him credit off the court,” he said. “He’s gone from flash to being a good representative of the NBA. I respect that. He seems to be more about family and community. He went through some off-the-court hardships, I guess. But yeah, I have a lot of respect for him now. I think he and LeBron helped each other grow up. I don’t hold a lot of animosity at all.”
So he’s matured. By that I mostly mean Cuban.
Wade was doing what Wade was supposed to do back in 2006 and the Mavericks didn’t have an answer. That’s basketball. One guy can swing a game or a series, something Cuban has seem plenty of with Dirk Nowitzki over the years.
We should start a pool on which player Cuban will dislike next. I’ll put my money on James Harden.