What you should know about Mavericks governor Patrick Dumont

New York Times

09-04-2025

The Dallas Mavericks sent shockwaves around the NBA this season when they dealt 25-year-old superstar Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers, a move that is hard to imagine occurring in the Mark Cuban era.
And Cuban made it clear in the aftermath of the trade that he believed it was a big mistake. But even though Cuban is still around the franchise, his influence has been greatly reduced since he sold his controlling interest in the team to the Adelson and Dumont families in December 2023.
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Instead, the trade was engineered by general manager Nico Harrison and approved by Patrick Dumont, the team's current governor.
The Athletic has reported extensively about Harrison since the trade, yielding some insight into the man who sent a transcendent star packing. And David Aldridge and Christian Clark have since shed light on how and why the trade came about.
But what about the man in charge? What about Patrick Dumont?
Here's what you should know about who is running the Mavericks.
Dumont is the son-in-law of Miriam Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon. He began working for the Adelson-owned Las Vegas Sands Corp. — a casino and resort company — in 2009 after he married their daughter, Sivan Ochshorn. By 2016, he had been promoted to chief financial officer. After Sheldon Adelson died in 2021, Dumont was elevated to president and chief operating officer. When the Adelson-Dumont family bought a controlling interest in the Mavs in 2023, Dumont replaced Cuban as the team's representative to the NBA's Board of Governors.
Before working for Las Vegas Sands Corp., Dumont was an investment banker with stints at Miller Buckfire and Bear Stearns. In 2015, he helped Sheldon Adelson buy the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper for $140 million. Adelson credited Dumont with orchestrating the deal.
According to Harrison, Dumont laughed when Harrison first approached him about the deal. But ultimately he went along with it, which leads us to our next question …
In business, Dumont is known to be trusting of the people he has empowered. He wants to understand his employees' thought processes before a big decision is made, but typically will trust them if he feels they have more expertise than he does. The Mavericks made the NBA Finals in 2024, and when it came to Dončić, Dumont trusted Harrison, who believed he had amassed more than enough intelligence over the last couple of years to make his choice.
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'I don't know how many teams saw the same thing that Nico saw,' one source familiar with all involved, but who was not involved in the trade discussions, told The Athletic. 'And then, the other pieces, the PJ Washingtons, that he put together. And they go to the fricking finals, right? So, I don't know what you (Dumont) think of your general manager in your few month's experience with him. But you probably think that he's got a gift. That he's good at this.'
In an article on mavs.com announcing the purchase of the team, Dumont said in a statement: 'Our family loves basketball, and we plan to display our passion for the sport by owning and investing in a world-class basketball organization that wins games and proudly represents its community.'
In that same story, Cuban praised the deal as an ideal partnership because, 'They're not basketball people. I'm not real estate people. That's why I did it.'
So, as much as Dumont may love the game, he came in unfamiliar with the workings of the NBA. In an interview at a luncheon last offseason, Dumont awkwardly referred to the finals as 'the championship games.'
Cuban certainly figured he would have a say in personnel decisions, but Harrison cut him out of the discussions around Dončić. Dumont, meanwhile, trusted Harrison.
'Patrick doesn't know basketball, and he knows he doesn't,' said one league source.