Students questioned Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on topics ranging from personnel decisions to the NBA dress code, and Cuban answered them all Tuesday in the Brown-Lupton Student Center.Cuban, promoting the Mavs U college ticket program, which allows students to purchase $10 tickets the day of a game, told a crowd of students no subject was off-limits during a 30-minute question-and-answer session, and the audience ran with it.
One student asked Cuban about the decision to let Steve Nash go to the Phoenix Suns before last season, saying the Suns’ victory over the Mavericks in the playoffs set Dallas back 10 years.
Cuban told the student to “get off the bong” and said he would trade Nash again if put in the same situation.
“(Phoenix) didn’t win a championship,” Cuban said. “He’s got no more jewelry than we do.
Cuban said that two weeks before the season began, all anybody wanted to talk about was the NBA dress code instituted in October, but he said he doesn’t think it is a big deal.
“I think it speaks for itself right here,” Cuban said, as he spoke to the audience in jeans and a Mavericks T-shirt. “A lot of people will tell you that I haven’t grown up yet, and I’m fine with that.”
Cuban said he is now worth “a whole lot”- – more than he ever dreamed possible. He said he co-founded www.broadcast.com, an online multimedia provider, and sold his first company a few days after turning 30.
Floyd Hernandez, a freshman business major, said he came to see Cuban speak because he heard Cuban was a business major and he wanted to hear how Cuban became successful.
Hernandez said he has similar career goals as Cuban and that he would like to retire at age 30 and buy a sports team.
Cuban said he went to college and majored in business, but he learned how to learn in college, and that put him ahead.
He said people don’t have to live like the rich and famous to live the life they want.
Cuban signed basketballs, T-shirts, posters and posed for a number of pictures with a line of fans waiting to meet him after he spoke. He even wished one man’s wife a happy anniversary over the phone.