Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is shown with Hillary Clinton earlier in November. (Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)
In the short time since Donald Trump’s election to the U.S. presidency, several NBA coaches have openly expressed dismay at it. Now a report claims that multiple teams in the league are making what could be construed as similar statements — by avoiding hotels with the “Trump” name while on road trips.
[Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich discusses Trump’s election: ‘My big fear is — we are Rome.’]
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Marc Stein and Zach Lowe identified the Dallas Mavericks, Milwaukee Bucks and Memphis Grizzlies as having “moved away from Trump hotels in New York City and Chicago, which bear Donald Trump’s name through a licensing agreement.” In addition, the pair reported that another, unidentified Eastern Conference team has decided to stay elsewhere after its contract with New York’s Trump SoHo hotel expires at the end of the season.
Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was an outspoken critic of Trump during the latter’s presidential campaign. Earlier this year, Cuban said, “Trump scares me,” and he called the then-GOP nominee “bat[crap] crazy.” In September, Cuban attended the first debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton as a guest of the Democratic nominee, and afterward, he took issue with Trump’s assertion that doing whatever he could do avoid paying taxes was “smart.”
“You have to realize that this is a country that’s been great to us and you can’t just take, take, take, take, take, take take,” Cuban said. In addition to being extremely wealthy business executives, both Cuban and Trump have had success as the stars of prime-time reality TV shows (“Shark Tank” and “The Apprentice,” respectively).
A co-owner of the Bucks, Marc Lasry, was a top fundraiser for Clinton’s campaign, as he was for Barack Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012. His son, Alexander, worked in the Obama White House for a time as an assistant to senior adviser Valerie Jarrett. At one point, the hedge-fund manager was also chairman of Trump Entertainment Resorts, Inc., after Trump extricated himself from ownership of several Atlantic City properties.
[NFL player, who knelt in protest of Trump’s election, pledges to stand for anthem again]
It is less clear what the political leanings are of the Grizzlies’ owner, Robert Pera, a 38-year-old Internet technology entrepreneur who became the youngest NBA owner when he purchased the team in 2012. A member of Pera’s ownership group, albeit with a very small stake, was former Democratic Congressman Harold Ford Jr. A “Guide to Evil NBA Owners” published in 2014 by Mother Jones had little to say about Pera, other than noting that the former high school basketball player had challenged the owner of the Hornets — that would be Michael Jordan — to a game of one-on-one, with proceeds of $1 million going to charity.
From ESPN’s report:
ESPN contacted all 30 teams this week to ask about their travel plans in New York and other NBA cities that feature Trump-branded hotels, which include Chicago, Miami, Toronto and Washington.
Several teams that have stayed at the Trump SoHo in particular in the past told ESPN that they are not staying there this season but did not specifically attribute the switch to any political reason. Several more said that they’ve never stayed at Trump-branded hotels.
Trump’s election has roiled the world of the NBA, one in which several stars, such as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony, have increased their focuses on social issues in recent years. In October, James formally endorsed Clinton for president, and he later introduced her at a rally in Cleveland. Following the election, James’s Cavaliers teammate, J.R. Smith, described Trump as a “racist, sexist person” on Instagram.
“The things that [Trump] said, the things that he represented, that’s the way that the majority of this nation feels,” the Warriors’ David West told reporters after the election. “I think he just emboldened them because he’s able to say it publicly. He got the platform. It is kind of unnerving and unsettling.”
[‘The message was loud and clear’: In NBA and NFL, a struggle to accept Trump’s election]
Pistons Coach Stan Van Gundy offered perhaps the most pointed comments from any prominent NBA figure. “I don’t think anybody can deny this guy is openly and brazenly racist and misogynistic and ethnic-centric,” he said of Trump. “We should be ashamed for what we stand for as the United States today.”
“It’s tough when you want there to be some respect and dignity, and there hasn’t been any,” Warriors Coach Steve Kerr said. “And then you walk into a room with your daughter and your wife, who have basically been insulted by his comments, and they’re distraught.”
“I’m just sick to my stomach,” Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich said last week. “Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenure and tone and all of the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic.”
Fewer NBA figures have been vocal about their pro-Trump leanings. One is Hornets center Spencer Hawes, who wore a “Hillary for prison 2016” shirt on the night of the election.
