DALLAS — Over more than two decades of conversations, nearly all on background, Donnie Nelson never had a bad word to say about Mark Cuban. Or any word at all, for that matter. Just the same, I never took his reticence to mean he had no complaints. You couldn’t work 20 years as chief of basketball operations under one of the most overbearing owners in sports without chafing at least a little. Donnie just seemed like a guy trying to keep his job and his boss off his back.
You could say he’s now getting a few things off his chest, which would be putting it mildly.
Nelson has filed a lawsuit against his former employer alleging he was fired after reporting that his nephew was “sexually harassed and sexually assaulted” by Cuban’s chief of staff, Jason Lutin. Nelson’s lawyer, Rogge Dunn, attached an unexecuted settlement agreement purporting the Mavs would have paid Nelson $52 million to withdraw his complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
