DALLAS  While Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says re-signing Kyrie Irving is the team’s top offseason priority, he doesn’t view it as a “Kyrie-or-bust” scenario.

The billionaire businessman who has stayed mostly silent on Mavericks matters this season also is showing support for Coach Jason Kidd with the team currently outside the playoff picture a year after going to the Western Conference finals in Kidd’s Dallas debut.

Cuban held a rare session with reporters before Wednesday’s 123-119 victory over Sacramento that kept alive the Mavs’ hopes of getting the final play-in spot as the 10th seed in the West. Dallas gambled with the blockbuster deal for Irving before the trade deadline in February despite his expiring contract, giving the franchise its first pair of All-Star starters with Luka Doncic.

The Mavericks have slipped in the standings since then, in part because of injuries to both stars, but Cuban maintains the move was made for the long term. Still, Cuban stopped short of declaring Irving’s return a must.

“It’s not Kyrie or bust, but we want to keep him,” said Cuban, who used to speak to reporters routinely before games before locker room access changed several years ago. “I’m done giving ultimatums on players like I did last year.”

He referred to the Mavs losing Doncic sidekick Jalen Brunson to the New York Knicks in free agency last summer, when Cuban confidently declared they would be able to keep him because they could pay him more. Brunson and the Knicks are safely in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

PLAYOFF CLINCH: Herbert Jones scored a career-high 35 points and the New Orleans Pelicans overcame a 19-point deficit to beat the Memphis Grizzlies 138-131 in overtime Wednesday night and clinch a play-in spot.

• Milwaukee will have the No. 1 overall seed and home-court advantage for the entirety of their time in the NBA playoffs, after beating Chicago 105-92 on Wednesday night. Milwaukee is 58-22 this season; no other team can get to more than 57 wins.

• Denver will have home-court throughout the West playoffs, after New Orleans beat Memphis in overtime and took away the last bit of hope the Grizzlies had of catching the Nuggets for the top spot out West.

• With Boston securing the No. 2 seed in the East, after beating Toronto on Wednesday, Philadelphia was locked into the No. 3 seed with a likely first-round matchup against Brooklyn.

PROTEST DENIED: The NBA on Thursday denied a protest by the Dallas Mavericks over a confusing sequence that led to an uncontested basket for Golden State in a two-point win by the Warriors.

The league said the Mavericks weren’t deprived of an opportunity to win because the sequence happened with almost 14 minutes remaining and Dallas led after the basket.

While the NBA acknowledged officials could have managed the situation better, that wasn’t enough for the “extraordinary remedy” of upholding the protest.

FORMER NBA guard Ben Gordon was arrested on weapons and threatening charges after he began behaving erratically in a Stamford., Connecticut juice shop, police said.

The episode started just before 10 a.m. Tuesday when several 911 callers reported “a male acting aggressively and in a bizarre manner” inside a juice shop in Stamford, the city’s assistant police chief, Richard Conklin, said Thursday. The man, identified as Gordon, continued to act erratically when officers arrived and tried to take him into custody, Conklin said.

The officers eventually subdued Gordon and placed him under arrest. They found a folding knife clipped to Gordon’s pocket, and a stun gun and brass knuckles in his backpack, Conklin said. Gordon was arrested on charges including carrying a dangerous weapon, second-degree threatening and interfering with an officer.

Copy the Story Link

« Previous

Sports Digest: LSU women plan to accept invitation to visit White House

Next »

Masters: Hovland, Rahm and Koepka share lead at 7 under