Mark Cuban: Why I bullied Bleacher Report into deleting Dirk tweet

If Mark Cuban doesn’t find it funny, he’s using his influence to try to force you into swallowing your laughter.

Bleacher Report learned that lesson after Friday’s sarcastic tweet featuring Dirk Nowitzki air-balling a 3-pointer, which it later deleted, had the Mavericks owner fuming all the way to Monday.

“I (couldn’t) care less about the video. It was the caption that made it disrespectful,” Cuban told Dallas SportsDay, referring to the message, “Dirk Forever,” alongside the embarrassing clip. “When it was up, there wasn’t a single reply saying it was funny. Just the opposite. Did you laugh? Find anyone who did? Aren’t blooper reels supposed to be funny?”

Cuban, who has taken offense to the media’s coverage of his team in the past, charged the San Francisco-based company with confusing humor with disrespect, and threatened Bleacher Report until the tweet was gone.

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Mark Cuban scares Bleacher Report into deleting tweet he hated 0:0 Two Mark Cuban certainties: He supports his guys, and he has... “Even now, when people are reposting it, no one is saying it’s funny,” he said. “No one is saying I missed the humor. They are just commenting about my being adamant about it coming down. Sometimes humor attempts go wrong. This was an example of an attempt gone wrong. Like I said in the email, there were captions that could have been fun. There is no one that enjoys making fun of himself more than Dirk.

“They made the mistake of picking a caption (that) was disrespectful rather than funny. If you are disrespectful to a legend, I’m standing up for him.”

Cuban went to extra lengths in his fit of rage Saturday, after the Mavericks’ 97-84 loss to the Timberwolves and the infamous tweet, going directly to the president of Bleacher Report’s parent company, David Levy of Turner Networks, with his complaint and posting the email exchange on Twitter for the world to see.

“I expect an apology immediately or you can expect me to take a very strong stand in support of one of the greatest players of all time,” Cuban wrote in an email to Levy and NBA commissioner Adam Silver. “Who the f–k thinks this is remotely acceptable and why are they working for you David?”

When Levy came to the social media team’s defense in his response, arguing that “sometimes bold tag lines are used” to connect with Millennials, Cuban fired back with another threat.

“This is an issue where if it’s not down immediately, I’ll communicate with the millennials in the way I know how to,” he wrote. “Your choice.”

As soon as Bleacher Report deleted its tweet, which it acknowledged in a separate, cryptic post to Twitter, Cuban recalled his ammunition, deleting all of his own tweets that referenced the feud.

It will be interesting to see what happens the next time an outlet irks Cuban.

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