Terdema Lamar Ussery II (born December 4, 1958) is a senior partner and general council for Verreaux Consulting Group. He is the former president and CEO of the National Basketball Association’s Dallas Mavericks. During that time, he also served as president of the Dallas Mavericks Foundation as well as an alternate governor for the Mavericks on the NBA Board of Governors. He is also interim general council for Buena Vista Visions. Career Ussery was born in Los Angeles and grew up in the Watts–Compton section of South Central Los Angeles, California, and attended The Thacher School in Ojai, California. In 1981, he earned a bachelor's degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he was a football team walk-on. Ussery obtained a master's degree from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1984. His law degree is from UC Berkeley, where he served as an executive editor of the California Law Review. Ussery also holds a Masters Degree from the Yale Divinity School. Ussery practiced business law at the international firm of Morrison and Foerster representing Bank of America and the Industrial Bank of Japan, among others. He moved to Denver to become the deputy commissioner and general counsel of the Continental Basketball Association (CBA) on the invitation of then-commissioner Irv Kaze. Ussery eventually became CBA Commissioner, the first African American to operate a professional sports league. His two-and-a-half-year term was highlighted by a rapid increase in franchise value and overall league-wide financial stability. While serving as CBA commissioner, Ussery's accomplishments were profiled in Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and a host of other national publications. In August 1993, Ussery was named president of Nike Sports Management. While reporting to Nike chairman and CEO Phil Knight, Ussery's responsibilities included marketing, advertising, branding, and negotiating on behalf of and marketing Nike's most elite pro athletes, including Alonzo Mourning, Ki-Jana Carter, Deion Sanders, Ken Griffey Jr., Picabo Street, Roy Jones Jr., Dan O'Brien, Scottie Pippen and Mike Mussina. Nike Sports Management was also integral in the launch of Coca-Cola's Powerade brand. Ussery was appointed as CEO of the Dallas Mavericks in 1997, upon which he announced his goal to make his organization the best sports entertainment company in the country. In his first season with the Mavericks, he led a successful campaign which resulted in public funding in the amount of