ROWDY TIME SPORTS

Where would you imagine a pro athlete’s contract being signed?

I’m guessing inside a trendy night club with music blaring all around would not be at the top of the list.

But that’s exactly where Mark Cuban showed up to have Chandler Parsons sign his three-year, $35 million offer sheet, inside Parson’s favorite night club in Orlando before the two proceeded to party the rest of the night.

That’s just a small microcosm of how Cuban continues to get it. And why the Mavericks, throughout all the ups and downs, remain the best-run organization in North Texas.

Rare is it the case that one teams off-season can trump another’s regular season going on at the same time for me. But with the Rangers’ disaster of a season that just seems to be getting worse with each passing day, the Mavericks finally making big headlines during NBA free agency has been a welcome sight.

It’s why I have to keep telling myself that, for now, this doesn’t really mean anything; that winning the off-season never guarantees regular-season success. Heck, the Rangers themselves proved that this year.

In signing Chandler Parsons, along with trading to bring Tyson Chandler back, the Mavs may have pushed themselves back into being a top squad in even the ultra-competitive Western Conference. And it’s all a result of Cuban being patient and trusting the way he felt this organization has to be run.

It amazes me that everyone was so up in arms about Cuban breaking up the Mavs after winning it all in 2011, no virtually no one has had a problem with how the Rangers broke up a two-time pennant winning team – just because ONE FLY BALL supposedly made that team incapable of winning a championship.

But in the Mavs’ case, Cuban had little choice. The league and the players’ union threw a completely new set of rules in his face with their labor deal to salvage the 2012 season, tripling the luxury tax. Suddenly, Cuban, who has lost more than $150 million on the team since purchasing it, had to reign in his spending and find a way to re-tool the roster while staying under the cap.

But while he said goodbye to people like Tyson, J.J. Barea and Jason Terry, he never parted with the one that mattered most. He knew keeping Dirk was essential to the Mavs’ chances of ever winning a title again; he just needed to adjust the pieces around the big German. And while it’s unlikely he predicted this exact roster would be there in three years, he endured the bumps and pitfalls, and at last completed the re-tooling project.

Cuban had to work within a convoluted set of salary cap rules with a team that has constantly bled red ink for him, even in on-court success, forcing him to make tough choices.

The Rangers had no such excuses, playing in a completely open market with no salary cap and with a ginormous TV contract on its way to supposedly lock in a healthy financial future. And yes, maybe they couldn’t re-sign everyone, but thinking they could up and replace everyone from the team that did what no Texas baseball club ever had before has left the organization a mess far worse than what the Mavs looked like two years ago.

But more than anything, Cuban has cultivated an organization that players want to be a part of. Maybe he couldn’t land superstars like Deron Williams or Dwight Howard who are just looking to get as much money as possible, but he was able to get guys like Parsons, who looks to be another great complimentary piece for Dirk. That same attitude is also why Jason Terry seems to be pretty much begging the Sacramento Kings to trade him back to Dallas.

An ex-player saying good things about the Metroplex team that let him go? Jon Daniels and the Rangers can only wish for that right now.

So while the Rangers find a way to just survive the rest of summer and then must find out how they can possibly right their sinking ship, Cuban, Donnie Nelson and the Mavericks must be chomping at the bit for November, when some real excitement can finally come back to DFW.

All because a guy who made his fortune on the Internet gets it better than a bunch of guys who claim to be good at the sports business.

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