Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban "isn’t too happy with the league-owned and funded New Orleans Hornets taking back salary and sending cash" as part of a trade for Kings F Carl Landry, according to Art Garcia of NBA.com. The Hornets' payroll "went up about $2.24 million, though that difference is prorated for the remainder of the season." Cuban last night said, "That’s just wrong. That’s just wrong. That’s just absolutely, positively wrong. I’ll probably go against the grain from everybody else, but that is so far wrong that it’s not even close. There’s so few teams in the league that can afford to do that and yet we’re allowing a team that’s owned by the league to do that?” The NBA, with funding from the other 29 franchise owners, purchased the Hornets in December from George Shinn for about $300M (NBA.com, 2/23). ESPN DALLAS' Jeff Caplan noted the Hornets, who are "over the salary cap, were able to fit Landry into a trade exception." Cuban said, "If New Orleans is taking back $2 million and the team is losing money and I own 1/29th of it, I'm going to go against the grain and say that's just wrong." Cuban said that he "never anticipated the Hornets to be in a position of taking on salary." He added, "I don't have a problem if they go dollar-for-dollar, great, more power to them. ... The league is supposed to just give them a budget and it never dawned on me that the budget would say you can spend more money to bring in players" (ESPNDALLAS.com, 2/23). Meanwhile, Cuban yesterday said that the Knicks acquiring Carmelo Anthony is "good business." Cuban: "When teams in New York have star players and play well, it’s really good, it’s good for me. ... It actually is good for the league having those guys in New York" (FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, 2/24).
