At Deadspin, Diana Moskovitz writes today that Sports Illustrated’s damning report on the Dallas Mavericks’ toxic workplace culture only scratched the surface.
What more could there be beyond former Mavs President and CEO Terdema Ussery allegedly telling an employee that she was “going to get gang-banged,” as SI reported? Or the Mavs.com beat writer twice accused of domestic violence?
“A used condom, screaming, and porn,” to start, per the Deadspin headline. The story, which relies on the accounts of eight anonymous “former and current employees,” goes on to describe what SI may have missed, including a man in the sales department who had a habit of watching pornography at his desk.
Many echoed similar points: SI described the sexual harassment accurately but the story was incomplete because it didn’t address the toxic culture more generally, especially the bullying, screaming, and other forms of harassment that intimidated them into silence.
Deadspin also asks the question on everyone’s minds as the NBA, and lawyers hired by the Mavs themselves, conduct investigations: what did Mark Cuban know?
The owner has spent years styling himself as a detail-oriented, hands-on owner, which makes it hard to imagine him being totally unaware of the culture that existed in his office.
One former employee recalled being told by [vice president of ticket sales George] Prokos that “‘Mark knows the numbers. Mark knows your numbers,’ like Mark knows all. So he was looking to see how many tickets we were selling.”
Cuban, though, rarely came by the offices, by all accounts. Multiple people told me that they never saw him there at all, so former employees said they figured he was getting updates from men including Prokos and Ussery, who likely weren’t mentioning their own behavior.
