With 5 Short Words, Mark Cuban Made An Admission That Nobody Else Would Touch. Now He's In Big Trouble For It

Even billionaires have bad days.  In the last 24 hours, here"s what"s happened to Mark Cuban:

His Dallas Mavericks were rocked by a harassment schedule. (More on that in a second.)

Then, news broke--because he let it slip--that he"d told his Mavericks players that "losing is our best option," so the team would wind up with a worse record and increase their odds of landing the first pick in the 2018 NBA draft. 

Now, he"s been fined $600,000 by Commissioner Adam Silver, as a result of that admission.

First, the harassment allegations, which are the most serious--but also the least settled.

A Sports Illustrated investigation painted a really ugly picture of misogyny and sexual harassment by some front office staff within the Mavericks--including the team"s former president. 

There are no allegations against Cuban himself, but he admitted to ESPN that keeping employees over the years, after several allegations had arisen, had been a "horrible mistake in hindsight."

In the #MeToo era, it"s untenable. (I mean, it should"ve been untenable forever, but this is the world we live in.)

Now, the Mavericks have hired a firm to investigate their own workplace culture. If Cuban is found to have known more about what was happening, the NBA could reportedly suspend him or fine him up to $2.5 million.

Which brings us to the current NBA fine. Because for now, Cuban is being punished for  admitting something everybody already knows about, or at least strongly suspects.

Toward the end of the season, especially in the NBA, teams with bad records have a strong incentive to play even more badly, all in the quest for that coveted number-1 draft pick.

If it weren"t such common knowledge, then the league wouldn"t be moving to make the change that will come about next year--when the bottom three teams will all have the exact same chance at the top pick (to remove the incentive to lose).

They call it "tanking," and the Shark Tank star is simply the first to admit it so forthrightly. And it"s going to cost him--$120,000 per word in that five-word statement.

Cuban"s consolation? He"s worth about $3.4 billion, and $600,000 is only about .0176 percent of that. If you have a $500,000 house and make $100,000 a year, it might be the equivalent of about a $100 fine.

In other words, he"ll be fine with the fine. His Mavericks are still losing (they"re 3-12 in their last 15 games). And they"ll have a great shot at the first pick.