My Toy, My Team, My Time

THERE IS A SIZABLE difference between Mark Cuban, Mavericks maniac, and Mark Cuban, Mavericks owner. Good thing, huh? The first Cuban, who yells and screams and acts as if every call that goes against Dallas is a crime against humanity, freely admits that he recently announced to a few patrons at a Phoenix bar that he was "the luckiest motherf--- on the planet." The second Cuban, who made his money in the dot-com boom and is listed by Forbes as the 428th wealthiest man in the U.S. (net worth: $1.8 billion), has forged, with his outside-the-box thinking, what is arguably the NBA's model franchise, yet he believes so strongly in the importance of all the league's markets that he won't make a speech in an opposing city unless every member of his audience promises to buy a ticket to that night's game. � As much as eye-rolling traditionalists don't want to hear it, there is no denying this fact: Whether or not his Mavs prevail in the Finals-they took a 2-0 lead over the Miami Heat with a 99-85 victory on Sunday night in American Airlines Center-the 47-year-old Cuban has become the perfect metaphor for this NBA postseason: wide-open, unpredictable and undeniably, wildly fun. There has never been an owner who more vociferously expresses his feelings, more pugnaciously defends his players or more conspicuously stands outside his team's huddle, ears cocked, listening for ... what? "I'm just trying to learn," says Cuban. Heat owner Micky Arison (net worth: $6.1 billion) may be able to buy and sell Cuban, yet fans could sooner identify Shaquille O'Neal's haberdasher than the 56-year-old cruise-ship magnate.

Cuban lives to connect. He sends his thoughts and theories hurtling into cyberspace, having long ago become pro sports' first owner-blogger. He claims to have saved every significant e-mail he has ever sent or received, including the one in which he asked his future wife, Tiffany Stewart, for a first date. Hi, Tiff, this is Mark from the gym ... remember me? (They went to Dumb and Dumber.) While Lakers owner Jerry Buss watches games from his suite with sweet young things, Cuban blabs and blogs from his front-row seat near the Mavs bench-Tiffany located safely some 50 feet down the court-the picture of the Alpha Fan 24/7.

BLOG MAVERICK

WOW

Posted: Jun 8, 2006, 10:25 PM ET

How are we ahead? We have not played well at all. we took advantage of some mistakes they made, but we need to push the ball more and take it stronger to the hoop. Which is what I know [coach] Avery [ Johnson] is telling the guys right now. Lets hope we can play better in the 2nd half.

Cuban's cybermusings, such as the one above posted during halftime of Game 1 against Miami, would hold little significance had he not transformed arguably the worst professional franchise of the '90s-a decade in which Dallas went a horrid 199-507-into a potential champion. And though it might seem to some of the squirming suits in the NBA office that he's run the Mavericks forever, he has taken them from the trash heap to the Finals in just six years.

Cuban actually sat still for an interview with SI shortly before the Finals, talking about spread sheets, "differentiated fan experience," game presentation and revenue assistance for small-market franchises. "I get almost as much satisfaction knowing I can have a positive impact on the league in general as watching my team do well," he said. That's a stretch, but any fair-minded observer would concede that Cuban has been a far more positive influence than many of the established, corporate-style owners. It is beyond pass� to consider Cuban and David Stern antagonists. The commissioner (below) still detests Cuban's ref-baiting, but he appreciates how Cuban responds to his customers. "Fans take that for granted ... that the arena experience should be a place that [is] welcoming, [where] the fans [are] treated in a way that they deserve to be treated," Stern said. "I think that here in Dallas, that is an absolute, at the top of the list."

BLOG MAVERICK

QUESTIONS I WOULD ASK AND BLOGGING THE FINALS.