A rumor involving the Dallas Mavericks took flight on Monday, when longtime NBA insider Marc Stein reported a group of Dallas investors are interested in partnering with Marc Cuban to buy back control of the franchise from the Dumont/Adelson family currently running it.

It's a tantalizing idea for fans still irate that controlling owner Patrick Dumont rubber-stamped the increasingly infamous Luka Dončić trade. It also does not appear to be happening.

The Mavericks shot down any possibility of a sale on Wednesday with a statement to the Dallas Morning News' Brad Townsend:

“The Dumont and Adelson families remain fully committed to the Dallas Mavericks franchise and to the Dallas community. They remain focused on building a championship organization for the long term.

“The team is not for sale and the families look forward to expanding their ownership stake over time.”

It's the second half of that last sentence which might hold the biggest significance. As Townsend notes, the Adelson/Dumont family bought a 69% stake of the Mavericks from Cuban in 2023, while Cuban retained 27% of the team. However, there is a provision in the agreement that allows the Adelsons to buy another 20% of the team from Cuban within the first four years of ownership, leaving him with as little as 7%.

So here's that statement, translated into simple terms: Mark Cuban is about to own a smaller piece of the Mavericks, not larger.

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Cuban himself expressed skepticism that any deal could happen, telling the News he also doesn't think. the Adelson/Dumont family would sell. This apparently isn't even the first time he's been approached:

“I get asked fairly often if I would be part of a group if they could buy the team,” he wrote to The News. “I tell them all the same thing: I don’t see them selling.”

That's probably not what most Mavericks fans want to hear, even with former general manager Nico Harrison out the door and Cuban seemingly more involved in basketball operations.

It's understandable why the fanbase would be so ready to hear a sale is in the works. It's not like Cuban nailed every decision when he was majority owner, but the team was, for the most part, competitive and stable in his two-plus decades at the wheel. He handed over a Mavericks franchise that reached the NBA Finals in its first season under the Adelsons, and it's all fallen apart in the two years since.

The Mavericks traded Dončić and bet big on 32-year-old Anthony Davis and 33-year-old Kyrie Irving forming an immediate contender. It didn't work out. Davis is now a member of the Washington Wizards, Irving still hasn't played since tearing his ACL nearly a year ago (while playing more minutes than any player in the NBA) and the Mavericks are 19-34.

The only thing that has landed right for the Mavericks is a ping-pong ball, which is hard for anyone to take credit for (Harrison tried, though). Maybe Cooper Flagg, the result of that ping-pong ball, will lead a new era of competitive basketball teams, but the rub for the Adelson/Dumont family is they've already shown what can happen when they receive one of those.

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New England Patriots wide receiver Kyle Williams found himself playing a little defense at Super Bowl LX.

In the fourth quarter of the Patriots' clash with the Seattle Seahawks, a shirtless fan ran onto the field and evaded security enough to reach the open field at Levi's Stadium. Normally, players just ignore field invaders unless the person enters their personal space.

Williams had other ideas, chasing down the man until he slid to the ground quarterback-style. A mob of security personnel proceeded to tackle him.

Williams was a third-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft out of Washington State and posted 209 receiving yards and three touchdowns in his rookie year, along with 290 yards on 11 kickoff returns. 

In the NFL scouting combine, he ran a 4.40 40-yard dash, in case you were curious what kind of speed that fan had running behind him.

The play preceded some good fortune for the Patriots, who were down 19-0 at that point in what was so far one of the worst offensive performances in Super Bowl history. New England quarterback Drake Maye proceeded to hit wide receiver Mack Hollins for a 24-yard gain, then a 35-yard touchdown pass to ensure the Patriots wouldn't be the first team shut out in the Super Bowl.

The Seahawks won 29-13 to collect their second Super Bowl title in franchise history.

President Donald Trump has expressed admiration for the New England Patriots dynasty in the past, so it was little surprise what he thought about Bill Belichick's Pro Football Hall of Fame snub.

Speaking with NBC News in an interview conducted Wednesday and aired on Super Bowl Sunday, the president complained about the longtime Patriots head coach failing to reach Canton in his first year of eligibility:

"I thought it was terrible. I mean, he's won so much, won so many Super Bowls. Great coach. Became a little bit controversial, I guess, after that, this little period after that. During it he was just a great coach. I thought it was very inappropriate.

"Oh, yeah. It's like what have you done for me lately? Well, you know, you have a great career and he has a little bit of a controversial year and a half, two years maybe. But — what difference does that make? No, he should've — he should be in there right at the top."

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Trump is hardly the first person to rail against the snub. He refers twice to "controversial" actions on Belichick's part, which could be a reference to the Spygate and Deflategate cheating scandals that occurred under the coach's watch. However, he alludes to those controversial years being after Belichick's NFL career so he might simply be referring to the 73-year-old's post-Patriots UNC-Jordon Hudson era.

Regardless, Belichick's snubs came down to more than controversies. As one of the few Belichick "no" voters laid out, the matter of voting Belichick was more than "yes" or "no." To some, it was "Belichick" or "a group of senior players who might not get another Hall of Fame shot for years."

The Hall of Fame's voting process created conditions in which the NFL's all-time leader in playoff wins among head coaches was put in competition for a limited number of votes with three senior players and a contributor, in this case Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

This year, the only one of that quintet to emerge was former San Francisco 49ers running back Roger Craig, who was recognized on the field at Super Bowl LX alongside modern-era inductees Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Luke Kuechly and Adam Vinatieri.