TheBasketballJunkie.com

If you're a basketball fan and NOT living under a rock, you probably heard that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has been charged with insider trading stemming from his sale of 600,000 shares of Mamma.com. According to charges, he avoided $750,000 in losses by using inside information.

"As we allege in the complaint, Mamma.com entrusted Mr. Cuban with nonpublic information after he promised to keep the information confidential. Less than four hours later, Mr. Cuban betrayed that trust by placing an order to sell all of his shares," Scott W. Friestad, deputy director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. "It is fundamentally unfair for someone to use access to nonpublic information to improperly gain an edge on the market."

According to Mark Cuban's attorney and through Cuban's blog, they will continue to fight the charges.

"This matter, which has been pending before the Commission for nearly two years, has no merit and is a product of gross abuse of prosecutorial discretion," Ferrara said. "Mr. Cuban intends to contest the allegations and to demonstrate that the Commission's claims are infected by the misconduct of the staff of its Enforcement Division."

ESPN's J.A. Adande made a parallel between what Cuban did and Tim Donaghy had done in his article.

In essence, Cuban is accused of doing the same thing Donaghy went to prison for: using information available to a select few people for his own financial gain.

The major, major difference, of course, is that Cuban is not accused of compromising the integrity of the Mavericks or the NBA. But now that there has been a breach in the public's trust, the league can't afford to have it expand any further. Ethics are in play more than ever before.

In many ways, I agree with Adande. The timing of the information being released couldn't be worse for the NBA. The Association has had to deal with questions of integrity and now it's most high profile owner is being accused of insider trading when fans are feeling the crunch of the economy.