Mark Cuban "sick to my stomach" over abuse allegations by Mavs employees

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was shocked by allegations of boorish and inappropriate behavior by former employees detailed in a story published by Sports Illustrated Tuesday evening.

"It’s wrong. It's abhorrent. It's not a situation we condone," Cuban told SI. "I can’t tell you how many times, particularly since all this [#MeToo] stuff has been coming out recently, I asked our HR director, 'Do we have a problem? Do we have any issues I have to be aware of?' And the answer was no."

The Mavs fired human resources director Buddy Pittman on Tuesday.

No Mavericks players are implicated in the SI story. Cuban declined to comment on the story besides what is said in a statement released by the Mavs Tuesday evening.

"I can't add anything that isn't already on the statement," Cuban told the Star-Telegram.

Six former female employees detailed to SI various inappropriate actions by former Mavs president Terdema Ussery. He left the organization in June 2015 to join Under Armor. Another former Mavs employee, Mavs.com writer Earl K. Sneed, was fired after he "misled the organization about a prior domestic violence incident," according to the Mavs' statement.

Sneed, who started covering the Mavs in 2010, was arrested for assaulting a girlfriend in 2012. In 2014, he allegedly punched another girlfriend, who at the time was also a Mavs employee. The woman reported the assault to Pittman, but Sneed remained with the Mavs.

Cuban said he was unaware of the allegations until "I heard you guys were looking into some things."

"Based off of what I've read here, we just fired our HR person," Cuban said. "I don't have any tolerance for what I've read."

How could Cuban not know of what is alleged to have happened in his organization?

"I deferred to the CEO, who at the time was Terdema, and to HR," he told SI. "I was involved in basketball operations, but other than getting the financials and reports, I was not involved in the day to day [of the business side] at all. That's why I just deferred. I let people do their jobs. And if there were anything like this at all I was supposed to be made aware, obviously I was not."

This story was originally published February 20, 2018 at 11:29 PM with the headline "Mark Cuban "sick to my stomach" over abuse allegations by Mavs employees."