Voulgaris back on twitter. Talks about the Mavs' experience.

[leolozon]

He said he was never the GM or shadow GM, he was just 1 voice, but at times very influential. Cuban and Nelson were taking the decisions.

He also said he had Green over Bey, but no one on the team objected to that at that time. The ones that did, did it after the season was over and those same person had DSJ over Mitchell and WCJ over Trae young, so drafting is hard and it's easy to comment afterward. He also said it's still early, meaning Green could well end up being better than Bey (I agree, Green is one year younger and I still think he just needs a 3pt shot.)

There also seemed to be power struggle inside the organization :

"A few ppl in the org enjoyed telling players that I was considering trading them, thinking it would do me harm without really considering the implications it would have on the actual player. That's not how I roll."

https://mobile.twitter.com/haralabob?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

[DJ_3_Ball]

Not just Twitter. There's this story too: https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/32443902/former-dallas-mavericks-executive-haralabos-voulgaris-compares-franchise-dysfunction-high-school-drama


ESPN Daily Podcast interview link: https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27852002/the-espn-daily-podcast-how-listen-episode-guide-more

[DJ_3_Ball]

That podcast with Voulgaris was very educational. It struck me as the absolute truth.

I haven't gotten into detail on this before, but I have a background in professional poker. I grinded low stakes. However, I had good friends who were very successful in the mid to late 2000s. No one I knew of who knew Volugaris directly. Moreso friends who had friends that were friends with Voulgaris, but that entire group i.e. people who have the make up to be a very successful poker player. They all share common personality traits, and the way they look at things is just different.

After 2011 when the FBI basically shut down online poker by making it illegal for US banks to do business with those websites, a lot of professional poker players gravitated towards sports betting. They looked up to Voulgaris as somewhat of an idol. A very good friend of mine got into sports betting. Won a nice little chunk of change betting on the NBA. Nothing like Voulgaris did. He said on the podcast his lifetime earnings from betting on sports (mostly the NBA) was in the couple hundreds of million dollars range. My friend won more like a couple hundreds of thousands of dollars range.

Listening to Voulgaris review his time with the Mavs, it's like listening to these very intelligent, yet different, individuals review a big hand of poker or decide on which line to take on a sports bet. There's no room for lies or exaggerations when you're contemplating a decision for a high dollars. Just data and your ability to look at decision from every conceivable angle. Always operating with incomplete information, and in those cases I think Voulgaris naturally painted a more flattering picture of himself than may have been the reality. However, I don't think he did so intentionally.

I think he was very transparent. I think he's a very competitive person and legitimately just wanted to see the Mavs win more games. I think Donnie Nelson leaked the story to The Athletic because he is a petty, bitter man. I also think the things Voulgaris talked about in the organization. Not currently, but while Donnie was there were very disturbing.

[Mr B]

I have no doubt that some of what he said was true however I have a hard time believing everything. I mean we’re talking about a guy that was basically forced out of a fun high paying job by a 22 year old. There’s bound to be some lies and exaggerations from him. He’s not going to tell a story that makes him look bad. I’d also like to know how much he got paid for the story.