New York Writer Blasts Cuban.... YAWNNNNN!

The reading of the Filip Bondy article from the New York Daily News across local airwaves today may be generating a lot more heat than light. Bondy's article, titled "Cuban Is No-Rings Boss" is pretty much dead-on, but devious, and possibly destructive, nonetheless.
Bondy manages to draw a couple of Mavericks offside, namely Stackhouse and Jason Terry:
...If you talk to the players, they don't sound so thrilled with the man. Cuban has hijacked the national headlines. Sometimes it seems he is doing so at the expense of Nowitzki and his teammates. He is like George Steinbrenner, when The Boss was younger and at his Bossiest. A couple of the Mavericks worry that Cuban is coloring the perception of this team. Whenever Cuban screams about a call, the players somehow end up sounding like the chronic complainers.
"We don't want to give people the impression we're a whining team," Jerry Stackhouse says. "(Cuban) can be a distraction if you look at it that way. He's always going to be like that. He's not speaking for us. He's just like the fan in the 10th row. Some things are out of our control. Sometimes it does carry over.
We made a conscious decision as a team to lay off the refs."
Cuban will be there again tonight, fussing and screaming. Does the owner cost the Mavs a free throw or two?
"You get on somebody long enough, they're going to have a reaction," Jason Terry says.'

These aren't new revelations. Dirk had already, a good while back, suggested maybe Mark sit down and shut up. The players know the deal. In so many ways, Cuban is a great owner...among the best. He reaches into those deep pockets and spends the money necessary to put a talented, contending team on the floor. He gets emotionally attached, not just to his club, but to his players.
And, he's a flake.
Big deal! Give me a flaky, whiny, over-cheering, blame-shifting, ref-bashing, Stern-hating, national embarrassment Cuban over anything we have ever had in the Mav's owner's box in the past.
If the Mavs were cellar-dwellers no one would care what Cuban or his kids were doing. But they aren't. They are an elite team vying for a championship. So, everything is magnified. Their flaws, their quirks, as well as their obvious on-court dominance.
Look, I didn't grow up hating the Yankees because of Steinbrenner. Heck, I didn't even know who he was. I hated those damned Yankees because they were everything my Rangers never were. Namely, winners. Maybe New Yorkers hate it that the Mavs do what they do with flaky Cuban while their city-slickin' Knicks bring up the rear.
Why on the blessed earth would we in Dallas/Fort Worth allow national (read that, New York) perception to dictate how we feel about our teams or their owners? They don't live here. They don't want our teams to win. They still hold the whole damn lot of us accountable for JFK, for crying out loud. Does Cuban cost us a free throw? Give me a break! If he brings us a title, that is a small price to pay.