ROWDY TIME SPORTS

Word is that Mark Cuban was a little pre-occupied while taking part in the filming of the final edition of “The Colbert Report.” He was all over his mobile devices making sure his latest blockbuster trade went down and Rajon Rondo was coming to the Mavericks.

Can we finally say “All is forgiven” for the Shark Tank incident?

Mark Cuban is still the best owner/operator in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Is that a fair title to use for him? Cuban has never given himself the title of general manager like a certain other owner in the area, but it’s fair to say every deal the Mavs make goes through him.

But unlike Jerry Jones, who is about the worst micro-manager this side of Vince McMahon, Cuban has always come off as someone who actually listens to experienced people around him like Donnie Nelson. As a result, the track record for Mavs deals is much, much better.

The Mavericks in Cuban’s time owning the club have always built their teams through the trade market, getting the likes of Jason Terry, Jason Kidd, Tyson Chandler (twice) and now Rondo. But the main thing to note is, they have rarely if ever seemed to make moves just for the sake of making moves; thy have always targeted exactly what they needed.

And that’s what they got in Rondo, perhaps the best pure point guard in the game today. In him, they get potentially a younger Jason Kidd, or perhaps a Steve Nash who plays better defense.

What’s more, the fact that the deal was done this early in the season is key. Looking back, the big deadline deal in 2010 for Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson wrecked that season for sure. Changing your roster that much with that few games left before the playoffs has to be a mistake from a chemistry standpoint. Rondo and these Mavs have plenty of time to gel.

He will never say it publicly, but you have to think that Greg Poppovich (who’s San Antonio Spurs will be the first team the Mavs will trot out their new piece against) read the headlines and thought “oh crap.”

The balance of power just shifted in the already stacked Southwest. Rondo is going from the cistern of the NBA in the Atlantic to the penthouse.

And all because Cuban refuses to lay dormant and is never afraid to take a chance – which is just par for the course for a guy who made billions off of the Internet when so many more went broke.

Nothing comes without a price. Losing an energetic big man like Brandan Wright is tough. Cuban, of course, always seems to have a plan and likely already dialed Jermaine O’Neal’s number before this article was even published.

Not every move Cuban made has been perfect. I don’t think anyone regrets letting Chandler go in 2011 and thinking they could replace him with Lamar Kardashian more than him.

But he clearly refused to become gun-shy even after that disaster, and the result is that even after getting Chandler back in a Dallas uniform and swiping Chandler Parsons away from Houston, Cuban was still not satisfied. And the result was just what his team was lacking – one of the game’s best distributors with the ability to help their beleaguered perimeter defense.

When Deron Wiliams spurned his hometown to stay in Brooklyn in 2012, people in Dallas roasted Cuban for focusing on his reality show during the negotiations, accusing him of no longer wanting to win.

You can all go ahead and start sending those letters of apology to him. Cuban still wants to win, and is still willing to make the deals he thinks will help them win.

And as far as sports owners go, he proves he’s still the best.

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