DALLAS — Mark Cuban knows a lot about a lot of things. If you don’t believe that, just ask him. He’s also always right. If you don’t believe that, just ask him.

Better yet, read his blog. It’s there that he pontificates on the world as he sees it, smug in the realization that the money he has in the bank gives him an insight into things that no one else possesses.

“Right is its own defense,” he opined recently.

That’s one of the advantages of being a billionaire. You can pretty much say what you want, do what you want, and people generally accept it with little more than a nod that acknowledges you are a much deeper thinker than most everyone else.

Sometimes it’s even entertaining.

Watch Cuban bash ex-Maverick Steve Nash on the David Letterman show. Watch him wear a Jerry Stackhouse jersey courtside during Game 5 of the NBA finals. Watch him get fined $250,000 by David Stern, as he did yesterday.

The NBA cited Cuban for “several acts of misconduct” committed after Dallas lost 101–100 in overtime to the Heat. Furious with several calls, Cuban went onto the floor to vent directly to official Joe DeRosa. He then stared down and screamed toward commissioner David Stern and a group of league officials, from the court, then the stands. He later used profanity during a postgame session with the press.

You will watch him because ABC seems to think that constant shots of the Dallas Mavericks’ owner are mustsee TV. There is something endearing, after all, about watching a spoiled billionaire complain that everyone is out to get him and that it just isn’t fair.

What’s next? A screaming fit before Game 6, at which time Cuban will simply take the ball and go home?

So, the Dallas Mavericks can’t get a call. So what. Shouldn’t billionaires have deeper things to worry about?

Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, with the kind of money that can buy or sell Mark Cuban 100 times over. Gates probably doesn’t even know who is playing in the NBA finals, but he can sure tell you about the $29 billion foundation he runs that tackles problems of HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis in the developing world.

Cuban has weighty issues on his mind, too. He worries about whether Dwyane Wade was really fouled, and whether Shaquille O’Neal gets away with too many things because he’s Shaq.

Oh, yeah, and that conspiracy thing, too. You see, the NBA is out to get the Mavericks, as anyone who is paying any attention at all to these playoffs probably already knows. That’s why Stackhouse was suspended for a game and, when that almost didn’t work, officials did their best to make it easy for the Heat to come back and take a 3–2 series lead Sunday night in Miami.

About the only thing the league hasn’t done is shorten the basket to nine feet on the Heat’s end of the court.

Good thing Cuban is thinking of hiring Dan Rather to host the news on his highdefinition TV network. If anyone can get to the bottom of this, it’s Rather.

Does anyone even know who owns the Heat? Someone must sign the paychecks in Miami.

You had to figure Cuban would cause trouble in the finals, though the NBA has only itself to blame for most of it. The league allows Cuban to continue to sit courtside even though he tries to intimidate officials at almost every opportunity.

Cuban should have been told after he berated officials following a playoff game against Phoenix that he would be allowed at games, but only if he sat in a suite and stayed there. Come anywhere near courtside again, and you can watch the games on the big HD televisions that must line every wall in your Dallas mansion.

Instead, Stern handed down a meaningless fine yesterday. That brought Cuban’s total to $450,000 for the playoffs, though it’s doubtful he’s counting.

Cuban said Monday he was expecting to be fined.It showed in his reaction to the penalty: “I’m fine with it,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Get the humor there. Fine with it.”

Cuban has been fined at least $1,455,000 and suspended from three games since buying the Mavs in January 2000. The exact total of his punishment tab isn’t known because the league doesn’t always publicize action against team owners. Cuban says he matches every dollar with a charitable donation.

His biggest fine was $500,000, the most against one person, in January 2002 for comments that included saying he wouldn’t hire the league’s head of officiating to manage a Dairy Queen.

Cuban’s attempts at intimidation are so childish that they border on ridiculous. If anything, they work against him, if the 49 free throws the Heat took in Game 5 are any indication.

And do you think Stern was cowering when Cuban stared him down and screamed at him after the game?

Hardly. What’s surprising isn’t that Stern hasn’t done more than just hand Cuban a few paltry fines, but that Cuban’s fellow NBA owners allow his act to continue. These guys are multimillionaires and more in their own right, and they know a billionaire bully when they see one.

Just remember this: Mark Cuban has more money than he can count. And that means he’s always right.