Dallas Investor Group Reportedly Eyes Mark Cuban Partnership to Buy Mavericks from Patrick Dumont

Mark Cuban reportedly has interest in buying back the Dallas Mavericks, but the team might not be for sale.

An "unidentified Dallas investor group" is reportedly interested in pairing with Cuban, the former Mavericks governor, to purchase the team from Patrick Dumont, according to NBA reporter Marc Stein.

"The family remains excited about the future of the franchise and the Cooper Flagg era," a source close to Dumont told Stein.

On Wednesday, Stein reported that the team is in fact not for sale:

Per Stein, "Cuban, when reached Monday, declined comment. He has been serving as an official adviser to Dumont since Nico Harrison's Nov. 11 dismissal and still owns 27 percent of the franchise as a minority owner, but that stake—as The Stein Line has reported previously—can be bought down to seven percent by Miriam Adelson/Dumont at the new owners' discretion within the first four years of the partnership."

When Cuban first sold his controlling interest of the Mavericks to the families of Dumont and Adelson, it was believed he would still be heavily involved in basketball operations.

"Nothing's really changed except my bank account," he told reporters in 2023. "I feel really good. I think it's a great partnership. It's what the team needed on the court and off. I'll still be overseeing the basketball side of it, but having a partner like Patrick and Sivan and Miriam and their ability to build and to redevelop the arena and whatever comes next beyond that just puts us in a much better position to compete. That's all. That's what it comes down to."

But Cuban reportedly wasn't consulted ahead of the Luka Dončić trade last season—one team source told ESPN's Tim MacMahon in November that Cuban had been "overselling" his actual role with the team—and that move proved so unpopular with fans that it eventually resulted in the firing of Harrison.

Cuban was also publicly critical of the ill-fated deal.

"If the Mavs are going to trade Luka, that's one thing," he said last March. "Just get a better deal. No disrespect to Anthony Davis, but I still firmly believe if we had gotten four unprotected No. 1s and Anthony Davis and Max Christie, this would be a different conversation."

It's unclear if Cuban has any actual interest in partnering with a group to repurchase the Mavericks, or if Dumont would consider selling. If there is fire behind this smoke, however, there are going to be questions about just how much the franchise's handling of the Dončić trade—and what was essentially a salary dump of Anthony Davis to follow—cast doubts in Cuban's mind about the future state of the franchise under the new stewardship.