Mark Cuban believes the extent to which the New York Knicks bungled signing Jalen Brunson to the Dallas Mavericks should have warranted more punishment than the 2025 second-round pick they made.
Speaking about the Pablo Torre finds out podcast, Cuban was asked specifically about how the Brunson deal turned out.
“I don’t know,” Cuban said when asked if he thought the Knicks had bypassed the cap to acquire Brunson. “I just think there was a lot going on.”
When Torre asked the question a little differently, Cuban expanded.
“That’s behind me, more power to JB, more power to everything,” Cuban said. “Was I happy that they didn’t qualify until the second round? No, it should have been a lot worse, but it is what it is.”
Should Jalen Brunson and the Knicks be concerned about an upcoming episode of Mark Cuban Finds Out? pic.twitter.com/qb0CTIdkHz
— Pablo Torre finds out (@pablofindsout) October 14, 2025
Cuban Shuts Down Nowitzki Cap Circumvention Conspiracy
Torre also showed Cuban a clip of Bill Simmons talking about a Dirk Nowitzki documentary and speculating that Cuban had paid a huge sum of money for the documentary as a way to pay Nowitzki outside of the salary cap.
“How he spent Iron Man money on the Dirk doc,” Simmons said. “Here’s 48 million for your doctor, who knows what he spent, but…”
Cuban immediately asked Torre how much he thought Cuban had paid. Torre revealed that he had done his own research and discovered that the Cuban company had paid $100,000 over a ten-year period for U.S. distribution rights.
Torre then asked Cuban outright if the Mavs had circumvented the salary cap in 2014.
“No,” Cuban said.
It was an interesting episode to see Cuban stick to the question of why Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers should still be considered innocent. He has declared himself “Team Ballmer” and had several nice conversations with Torre on the subject.
#Mark #Cuban #thinks #Knicks #received #light #punishment #tampering #Brunson