#Mark Cuban dishes to Jalen Rose on being a new era owner, changing the NBA

Growing up, I was noticeably taller than my classmates, and my foot size always matched my age, which made me ripe for teasing.

But I eventually learned to embrace what made me different because that was the thing that helped me succeed. While most of us learn that lesson with age, that principle seemed to be inherently baked in at birth for my guest this week. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has never been afraid to stand out, and his boldness has made him one of the most recognizable businessmen in the world.

Some stats on my friend: He dropped out of high school and got his GED, so he could take college level business classes (without telling his parents, mind you). He went to the University of Pittsburgh for a year, but he wanted a true business school education so he switched to the University of Indiana because it was in the top 10 but also the cheapest.

There he threw dorm parties, where he paid off the resident advisers to look the other way. And eventually, his ragers grew so large, he was throwing them at the National Guard Armory in Bloomington, transporting students via school buses and charging them $10 for the honor. That’s how he paid his tuition.

“I was always a hustler,” he told me.

In 2000, when he purchased the Mavs, he pulled a Frank Sinatra. He did it his way — becoming a new era type owner who shuffled the deck on how to run a team. And even though he was the new guy in the room, he did it with unshakeable confidence.

“I would go to these board of governors meetings, and the old school owners, the guys who inherited the teams and were in their 70s and 80s, they would yell at me in meetings,” he told me. “They would give me a hard time all the time. I am like ‘dude this is the only way I know how to do it. It’s how I run my businesses and it’s not going to change.’ “

It was he who made the league change to his ways. For example, he ushered in the now ubiquitous player development roles. And when he took over the team, he made a shocking discovery.

“I was looking at stuff, and I realized that we spent more money on computer repairs than we did on player development,” Cuban said. “I am like, ‘This is backwards.’ I’m like, ‘We have all of these former players who want to get back in the game, bring them all in.’ We had like 10 player development coaches, almost one for every guy and people destroyed me. I’m like, ‘You guys are the idiots.’

“That started the whole player movement,” he said, adding that Chip Engelland who is a coach with the San Antonio Spurs always thanks him for his job — at a completely different team.

And he changed the relationship between players and coaches because he wanted to understand his product fully. He sat near the huddle instead of in the owner’s box.

“I wanted to listen to what coaches had to say but more importantly I wanted to see how guys reacted,” Cuban said. He sits in on sales meetings and programming meetings because he wants to know who is good at their jobs and how the whole machine functions together.

“Culture and approach, all that stuff is critical to winning basketball,” he said. His approach didn’t come without blowback. “Literally they passed a rule in like 2005 or 2006 saying that only coaches and players and immediate staff were allowed to be by any huddles or by the bench. I just ignored it.”

Mark wanted to make the league player-friendly and as a result, he was able to keep the legendary Dirk Nowitzki a Maverick during his entire career. He eliminated that barrier between player and owner.

I love that Mark has also made business sexy. He brought us the addictive “Shark Tank.” These wheeling dealing conversations have been happening for decades behind closed doors, but he let the public in the room. As for his dream sharks, he didn’t hesitate to drop Shaq and Kevin Hart’s name.

And since he basically went from being a bartender to a billionaire, I had to ask him about his favorite cocktails.

If he’s the one imbibing, he prefers to keep it simple with a Tito’s and soda. “I’m a sipper,” he said. But he likes to serve up a “Milky Way,” which is essentially a white Russian with half a Milky Way bar — a boozy milkshake.

And after the long week I’ve had, I’m going to turn Chez Rose into the Cuban Tavern and make myself his signature cocktail, if you don’t mind.

Detroit native Jalen Rose is a member of the University of Michigan’s iconoclastic Fab Five, who shook up the college hoops world in the early ’90s. He played 13 seasons in the NBA, before transitioning into a media personality. Rose is currently an analyst for “NBA Countdown” and “Get Up,” and co-host of “Jalen & Jacoby.” He executive produced “The Fab Five” for ESPN’s “30 for 30” series, is the author of the best-selling book, “Got To Give the People What They Want,” a fashion tastemaker, and co-founded the Jalen Rose Leadership Academy, a public charter school in his hometown.