One Mouthy Laker Rival Is Up to His Old Tricks

In the interest of, well, interest, it’s not too early to search for new rivalries for the Lakers.

Portland, Sacramento and San Antonio are all worthy adversaries. But when none of them could take a game off the Lakers in the playoffs last season, there went the fun.

Why not the Dallas Mavericks? They’re a young, athletic team. And if they can’t hang with the Lakers on the court, they’ll at least make things interesting in the day-off interviews.

Think of the matchup: Their outspoken owner, Mark Cuban, against Laker Coach Phil Jackson, who loves to zing when he isn’t doing Zen.

They had a few verbal volleys last year, and Cuban proved up to the challenge. He visited L.A. last week to check on his new HDNet high-definition television channel on DirecTV, which debuted with a telecast of the King-Coyote game at Staples Center. And he sounded ready for some more fun.

Taking note of Shaquille O’Neal’s weight, he said, “Right now, my job is to keep on feeding Shaq jelly doughnuts. If I can get him up to 400 pounds, then I’ll send him some Elvis CDs.”

O’Neal already can’t stand the Mavericks because Dallas Coach Don Nelson likes to take the Hack-a-Shaq “strategy” to extremes.

The Mavericks sent O’Neal to the free-throw line 71 times in four games. O’Neal referred to Nelson as “a clown.”

But Cuban fully expects his team to keep using Hack-a-Shaq--in addition to the new zone defense rules.

“With the rules changes, it’s wide open,” Cuban said. “If we have an advantage beyond our guys, it’s Don Nelson. He’s the king of trying to find new ways to use the circumstances to your favor.

“It’ll be interesting. You put somebody in front and back of Shaq, what’s he going to do? Does he get frustrated? Can the other guys step up?”

And he has absolutely no problem with watching an endless series of free throws

“To me, it’s part of the game,” Cuban said. “If an 11-year-old kid can hit a free throw, you can teach a guy making $20 million a year to make a free throw. If you can’t, if you’re not fouling him, then you’re not doing your job. It’s in Shaq’s control to fix. For a while there, he had. You don’t need to put a rule in to end Hack-a-Shaq. He ended it by hitting his free throws. It’s that easy.

“If you’re not doing it, you’re making a mistake. This stuff about ‘purity of the game’ and ‘it’s not right’ ... if that was one of my coaches [saying that], I’d kick him in the head. Our job is to win.

“Shaq’s going to get more and more frustrated, it’s going to get more and more in his head ... not just Shaq, anybody. If a guy can’t hit a jumper, what do you do? You leave him open. If a guy can’t hit a free throw, you send him to the free-throw line, regardless of who it is.

“That’s strategy of the game. If you’re not doing it, you’re not doing everything you can to win, and you’re not working for me.”

At seminars filled with the top people in the technology business, Cuban can come across as the brightest guy in the room. At games, he can look like just another loudmouth fan, chastising referees from his courtside seat.

Cuban made his fortune with a company that broadcast games over the Internet, a company he sold to Yahoo! In August (before terrorist attacks dented stock portfolios around the country) Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.4 billion, putting him at No. 158 on the list of the wealthiest Americans.

And he isn’t reluctant to pour money into his team. One of the reasons he spent $45 million (“give or take”) on a 757 for the team was because the charter airlines did not offer meals that met the nutritional standards he wants for his players.

As soon as the technology is available--he estimates it will be within 90 days--he will record and watch his team’s practices and home games in high-definition format.

And he isn’t reluctant to cross the NBA’s luxury-tax threshold, which is where he differs so greatly from Laker owner Jerry Buss. (A critique of Cuban’s free spending by Jackson was what started their little tiff.)

This summer, Cuban signed guard Michael Finley to a seven-year, $102.2-million contract. He said he has a verbal agreement on a $90-million extension for Dirk Nowitzki. “To me, if you’re winning, I can find ways to make money,” Cuban said. “Different people approach things a different way. Dr. Buss, you can’t argue with his success. From his business perspective, he’s got his approach. For mine, if I’ve got a winning team going into a new arena, I’ll find new revenues.

“Winning makes it easy to make money. Losing makes it tough to make money, whether you’re under the luxury tax or not.”

The Mavericks move into the new American Airlines Center this season. There are 142 suites in the building. Cuban has one of them, but he won’t be in it come game time. That could be trouble. Commissioner David Stern fined him $505,000 last season, most of it for his criticisms of officials during and after games.

Cuban chalks it up to “the cost of doing business.” In his view, if the officials are impacting his $280-million investment, he’s going to speak out about it.

And although he isn’t foolish enough to say, “Bring on the Lakers!” he isn’t afraid of them, either. Not after adding veterans Tim Hardaway and Danny Manning to the group led by Finley, Nowitzki and Juwan Howard that made the second round of the playoffs last season.

“I wouldn’t bet against us, let’s put it that way,” he said. “Who knows how Shaq’s going to come back? Is he going to come back with a jelly roll? Is he going to come back with a six pack? That’s going to have an impact.

“That’s not a knock on Shaq, he’s coming back from a very painful injury. Being in Dallas, we saw what happened with Deion Sanders [who suffered a toe injury when he played for the Cowboys]. ‘Oh, it’s only a toe.’ And then the next thing you know, he can’t do anything.

“Let’s put it this way: If it gets down to where we’re beating their butts and they’re beating our butts, that’s a beautiful thing. Because it means we’re competing. We’ll see what happens.”

But long before that, we’ll hear it.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.