NBA Insider with Ken Berger

It is a rule: When you interview the Blogmaverick himself, you must write a blog entry about it.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was compelling enough to write about in the traditional newspaper column, but the finite nature of newsprint doesn’t do him justice. So here are the highlights of Cuban’s only visit of the season to Madison Square Garden, which is dangerously close to the NBA offices – which, as you might have heard, Cuban has dubbed “David Stern University.”

Did he spend any time with the commissioner, you ask?

“Since I haven’t been fined, they didn’t have any money for donuts or anything,” Cuban said. “So I volunteered to make donuts. That was my home ec project. Whether or not they’re any good, I don’t know. I forgot the sprinkles, so that might hurt my grade.”

Did he really try to buy the Chicago Cubs?

“I made inquiries, but they’re not separating out the Cubs,” Cuban said of the Tribune Company, which owns this blog. “You guys read the press as much as I do. I know some people who are active in trying to buy the Tribune Company that if they got the company and they were willing to split it up, I’d be willing to talk. But I’m not in any active discussions.”

Unfortunately, Cuban isn’t interested in buying Newsday.

He did elaborate on a revelation he made a couple of weeks ago on a TV show: That he considered selling the Mavericks after they lost to the Heat in the NBA Finals last June. This was serious, with investment bankers taking bids from “more than three but less than 20” potential suitors.

It started in June and lasted until September or October, Cuban said – a major effort resulting from his disillusionment over, among other things, being repeatedly fined by Stern.

A month after he shut down the bidding and decided to keep the team, the NBA Board of Governors passed the “Mark Cuban Rule,” meant to keep team owners off the bench, out of the huddle, and out of the referees’ ears.

Cuban’s interest in getting out of the NBA also was prompted by his feeling that the refs heavily favored Miami in its comeback from a 2-0 deficit to beat the Mavericks in the Finals.

“I told Stern, I told other owners that I was out,” Cuban said. “Given what happened in June, there were a lot of things that I wasn’t comfortable with. But as I told the guys in Dallas, there’s more to it than just that. The connection with the players and an obligation to the players, I felt I owed them more.”

Cuban said he “hung out” with Dirk Nowitzki in July and started to change his mind, but the process continued for several more months.

“I wouldn’t have regretted it at all, because that would have been a nice opportunity to get some things off my chest, which I would have enjoyed immensely,” Cuban said.

Other highlights:

* On his relationship with Stern: “I’ll give him a kiss on the cheek when I see him. It’s the same. As long as we don’t talk about sex, politics, and religion, we’re OK.”
* When asked why he would kiss Stern’s cheek and not his ring: “You know, because his toes were covered.”
* On what would happen if David Stern University merged with Donald Trump University (Trump is another Cuban nemesis): “All fines are named for Donald Trump. Like the Trumpster $1,000, the Trumpster $2,000.”
* On Stephon Marbury’s Starbury line of $14.98 shoes: “The NBA has never, ever done anything that is as impactful as what he’s done.”