Mavericks owner Mark Cuban turned over a new leaf in NBA playoffs

Suddenly, the spigot of outrage turned off. The decadent buffet line of rips and quips and clever observations ceased to exist during the NBA playoffs.

Mark Cuban went on a lockout.

Of himself.

Of course this wasn’t quite locking up the keys and throwing them away. But starting with the second-round playoff series against the Lakers, the passionate Mavericks owner managed to pull off what was once thought to be nearly impossible.

When he did talk, he really didn’t say anything, not even when asked about having any interest in buying the Dodgers. Cuban was shockingly boring.

By the time the Mavericks finished off the Miami Heat in Game 6 of the NBA Finals to win their first championship, Cuban’s image had improved exponentially. This, five years after he was fined $250,000 by the NBA for bad behavior following the Mavericks’ loss to the Heat in Game 5 of the 2006 Finals.

Low-key, as it turned out, was the pitch-perfect note.

Now comes the other shoe dropping.

For those who thought Cuban eventually would go back to his day job of being Cuban — and he did show more than glimpses of his let-it-fly philosophy in later interviews — he was saying otherwise about the future on Monday.

“I actually really enjoyed not having to deal with the media,” Cuban said in an email to The Times.

“I’m going to do the rounds post finals and then probably back off considerably and just use the platforms I have under my control to communicate publicly (Twitter, blogmaverick.com, HDNet).”

At least there will be a place for him to answer questions from Mavericks season-ticket holders and victory-starved fans of other teams in other sports, desperately hoping he will purchase the (fill-in-the-blank) franchise.

The shift in how Cuban operated during the final three rounds of the playoffs may have resulted in a revised public perception, but at least one longtime NBA executive and a branding strategist did not think it represented a fundamental personal change.

Jeanie Buss, Lakers executive vice president, has served with Cuban on the league’s labor relations committee, dealing with negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement. She wrote in her book “Laker Girl” that she enjoyed teasing Cuban about his back-and-forth with her longtime partner, Phil Jackson.

Buss sent Cuban a congratulatory message on Twitter after the Mavericks won.

If the Lakers were going to lose, at least they went out to the eventual champions.

“I don’t think Mark Cuban has changed at all as a person,” said Buss, the daughter of Lakers owner Jerry Buss. “He’s just focused his energy and the guy is dedicated to the sport, the players. He’s somebody that really has been great for the NBA. I know he has a lot of detractors.

“I was saying to someone the other day: ‘Do you know who Mark Cuban is? Do you even remember that Ross Perot Jr. owned the team before him and they were like, ‘Who’s that?’”

Adam Hanft, chief operating officer for the marketing firm Hanft Projects, spoke about Cuban stepping back from the media fray.

“He was clearly quiet for a while,” said Hanft, an advertising copywriter before opening his own firm. “But I think that was more of a tactical approach rather than a fundamental change in his public persona, or image. He is who he is — within a parameter — and I think he wanted to let the team speak for itself.”

Not only did Cuban let the Mavericks make their own statement, he made sure the team’s first owner, Donald Carter, was presented the championship trophy from NBA Commissioner David Stern. Cuban said he would pay for the victory parade and credited his players, one by one, and Coach Rick Carlisle.

Carlisle joked that the owner was “now available for interviews.”

Jeanie Buss was one of the league executives Cuban consulted about the ownership approval process before he got a majority stake in the Mavericks in 2000.

The brash upstart actually reminded her of another outsized personality in her life. You might say things worked out rather well for that owner too.

“When Mark first came into the NBA, people were hesitant about how out-loud he lived,” Buss said. “It reminds me exactly of my dad. They were about the same age when they came into the NBA. My dad was in his 40s. Mark was in his early 40s.

“It was like, ‘Look at this guy with this lifestyle.’ They kind of looked at my dad the same way. He took Mark under his wing, and endorsed him because he saw that Mark thinks like a fan. That led to his success.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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