Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sat down with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports recently and reflected on his time in the NBA.

Cuban was installed as the team's owner on Jan. 4, 2000.

"When I got in, everyone was like, 'Shut the hell up, go up to the box, write the check and don't say a word.' Now, every time a team loses a game someone wants me to buy their team. Now when new owners come in, they want them to be like Mark Cuban. That's a compliment, that's interesting, that's fun and everything," he said.

"I've changed rules. I paid attention to the rules, I paid attention to the game and the math of the game. Things like clear-path [fouls] and showing the NBA the math didn't work when it was one shot and the ball. It gave the defense advantage. We got that rule changed. I think I have had an impact on how the game is played. Not all teams, but a lot of teams recognize that we're in the entertainment business, not in the basketball business. Now we go to arenas and they try to do what we do here. They try to copy us more than any other team. That's a compliment. But it also makes us work harder to raise the bar. I want to stay ahead of everybody, too."

Even though he's been involved with the NBA for nearly a decade, Cuban says he only became aware that his opinion mattered less than three years ago.

"I get along good with David," Cuban said of NBA commissioner David Stern.

"I always did. We just took a different approach to some things, and he had the hammer. But I had the pen. I think he always has [respected me]. It wasn't like I was railing about an issue that wasn't on people?s minds. It wasn't like I was complaining about the price of cheeseburgers in China."