The Mavericks’ training facility makeover, it turns out, will be even more extreme than we imagined.
Mark Cuban tells us there will be a kitchen, chefs, sleep pods, arcade games that probably will include virtual golf, football and soccer. And, potentially, real bowling.
Wait. Bowling?
“For real,” Cuban said. “Two lanes.”
While we ponder whether Boban Marjanovic or Kristaps Porzingis could fit into a sleeping pod and whether a portion of the Mavericks’ BioSteel Practice Center might be sub-sponsored by Dave & Buster’s, this enhanced player pampering shines a light on a potentially larger story.
With Cuban pouring more millions into what already is a reportedly a $70 million facility, is it less likely that he will eventually raze the building to build a new arena?
“No, not at all,” Cuban said. “It’s all designed to be extractable.”
Furthermore, Cuban in the next breath told The Dallas Morning News without being asked: “I’d say the likelihood of us staying at the AAC right now is less than 50%.”
He is of course referring to American Airlines Center, which four months ago turned 20. The Mavericks’ 30-year lease at AAC expires on July 28, 2031.
This isn’t the first time Cuban has broached the possibility of leaving AAC. When he purchased the 14-acre tract on which the Mavericks’ training facility was constructed in 2016, in the Design District, he noted that the land is three times larger than the parcel on which AAC was built.
Cuban also moved the Mavericks’ business offices from Deep Ellum to a building adjacent to the practice facility. Both are less than a mile from AAC, visible across I-35.
Cuban, 63, told The News in 2016 that building the practice facility in Dallas, rather than the suburbs as the Cowboys and Stars have, was a way of making a commitment to the city that adopted him as a cash-strapped 23-year-old in 1982.
He regards the potential of building an arena in much the same way, albeit on a much grander scale. On its…