The Dallas Mavericks have been conducting an internal investigation since Sports Illustrated reported in February on the club’s history of sexual harassment, and this week the Dallas Morning News has some new details on the behavior of former senior account executive Chris Hyde. SI and Deadspin each reported the anecdote of an employee watching a bunch of porn at his desk earlier this year, and the News has more details about Hyde’s porn habit.
Per the News, Hyde worked for the Mavs for 15 years, and began his pattern of behavior shortly after starting. He reportedly began showing his coworkers porn on his work computer as well as “pictures on his phone that he’d taken of women in lingerie, topless or naked.” Because he also tended to, as the News put it, “rub himself below his belt line,” he picked up the name “Pants DJ.” One former Mavs employee even said that Hyde brought in his own external hard drive to avoid having to keep using office computers.
Five ex-Mavs employees said they never lodged formal complaints with human resources because “they believed the actions were common knowledge and generally accepted by superiors.” In 2008, according to the News, Hyde told a former employee that Mavs owner Mark Cuban had warned him to stop keeping “erotic photos” on his work computer. Despite Cuban telling Hyde he’d be fired, former employees say he eventually went back to bringing porn into the office.
An ex-employee said Cuban’s warning “might have slowed him down for six months, but it didn’t stop him.” Three years after Hyde received that warning, he was seen dropping a used condom on the floor of the office, the News reported. According to the News, Hyde was fired in 2014, though it had nothing to do with his rampant porn habit.