If Mark Cuban were appointed as a special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, I suspect that his solution to the region’s intractable problems would follow an approach something like this.

First, he’d whip out the checkbook, rent the United Nations building for a day and summon all the parties to a meeting.

While everyone was enjoying frittatas and caviar, Cuban would jolt the proceedings to a start by pointing out that even the dimmest Dairy Queen managers wouldn’t be pissant-brained enough to think that blowing themselves up would convince people they had the sense to run their own state.

While the Israelis were clapping over that one, Cuban would remind them that anybody pigheaded enough to build permanent settlements in territories they’d promised to leave, and choose a war criminal for prime minister to boot, was asking for trouble. For leverage, he might propose cutting off their allowance—no more Apache helicopters—until they quit acting like Uncle Sam’s bullying nephew.

And Cuban might mention to our pals the Saudis that, since they keep sending donations to terrorists and letting state-run newspapers claim that Jews drink the blood of Muslims and Christians, we’ll just pull our troops out of their sacred soil and let them take their chances against Saddam, Osama and whoever else wants a cut. Alternatively, he might simply buy Saudi Arabia and replace the management, which is always an option when you have more money than Allah.

Now, unless we want to try fighting a seven- or eight-front war, it’s probably a good thing that Cuban doesn’t head up our diplomatic corps. But the owner of the Dallas Mavericks does have a prophet’s knack for speaking unpleasant truths.

Take his recent comment suggesting that you didn’t necessarily need to be the sharpest tool in the box to manage a Dairy Queen. It caused no small flap, and Cuban wound up flipping burgers and serving Blizzards for a day as p.r. penance. But to judge from my difficulties at getting even the simplest order correctly filled at the DQ down the street—provided they’re not completely out of fries or ice cream that day—Cuban was right, and I’m glad he said it.

He p.o.’s people that need p.o.-ing. That’s one reason why, if you were running Cuban for Commissioner of the NBA, he’d have my vote in a heartbeat.

Cuban is best known around the league as an irritant. He irritates Commissioner David Stern, his fellow owners and general managers by his willingness to say just about anything. He irritates referees with his post-game comments about the quality of their work. Then he irritates all of the above by producing whatever the league demands as a penalty—$10,000, $25,000, $100,000—all with the nonchalance of someone paying a 50-cent library fine.

During his relatively brief tenure, Cuban has played Groucho Marx to the NBA’s Margaret Dumont. He isn’t merely a breath of fresh air. He’s practically a hurricane.

Of course, if wind were all he brought to the game, Cuban would be just another in a long line of flakes with money. But while he’s no diplomat, he has a plan. And I suspect that we will eventually view him as basketball’s answer to Charlie Finley or Bill Veeck, erstwhile nutbags now regarded as eccentric visionaries.

Cuban is an overgrown kid who brings to his endeavors the brainpower of Jimmy Neutron crossed with Jethro Bodine’s sense of wonderment. He made a fortune—OK, several fortunes—by developing the technology to broadcast audio over the internet.

His mansion in North Dallas remains largely unfurnished. One vast room serves mostly as a wiffleball field. His refrigerator is stocked with TV dinners. His wardrobe skews toward jeans.

Maybe that seems a little loopy for a gazillionaire, but fans can relate to a guy like this. He thinks like they do. Just like them, he castigates the refs—except that he gets fined for the privilege. Once, the league docked him before he even opened his mouth, just for sitting near the court instead of in some luxury box.

He sponsors Veeck-ish, crowd-pleasing promotions, such as giving every ticketholder a free burrito when the Mavs surpass 100 points. When an opponent mugged one of his players (just after Dallas had reached triple digits, and the home fans were loudly cheering their choice of beef- or bean-filled prizes), Cuban sprinted onto the court to join the fray. He paid the fine and kept going.

If Cuban were in charge, you can bet the game would become more interesting. These days, the NBA is about as stagnant as the air inside Karl Malone’s laundry hamper. You only have to view a few tapes of the old Lakers and Celtics to appreciate how comparatively lifeless the games have become.

But the fast-breaking, high-octane style of the “Showtime” days in L.A. has enjoyed a revival, courtesy of Dallas. The Mavs have led the league in scoring all year, averaging over 100 points per game. So how did they elect to improve themselves before the trade deadline? Naturally, they went out and got even more scorers. Maybe these guys couldn’t guard your house, but they get off more shots in 48 minutes than the Wild Bunch managed in two hours.

If the NBA could dope out a way to ensure that every televised game were between the Mavericks and the Sacramento Kings (the only other team that pushes the tempo with such relish), their ratings problem would disappear. I figure a Commissioner Cuban would get it done. Maybe he’d make it illegal for offenses to clear out so their star could play one-on-one, or forbid them from letting their big men park with their backs to the basket. One way or another, we’d have no more mind-numbing, ratings-killing 81-76 games that have led the major networks to abandon the NBA and leave it to cable.

If Cuban were in charge, the officiating would improve, too. He doesn’t just complain that too many refs are bad; he can prove it. In businesslike fashion, he’s had people replaying videotapes, logging bad calls and generating reports that identify which officials are most often wrong. (The evidence is becoming so abundant that the league has practically stopped disputing him.) With Cuban calling the shots, the zebra herd would be culled and the survivors would become fittest.

There’s one more reason why Cuban is so unpopular among the suits: He threatens their mossback approach to labor relations.

Cuban spares almost no expense on his players (a) because he can and (b) because he’s infected with the deeply subversive notion that employees work harder and show more loyalty when they’re well treated. Some perks are big. Each Mav has a complete audio/video/game system in his locker area. Some perks are small. Each players gets the extra-plush towels and bathrobes. The team travels first class.

Even the Mavs’ bearish coach Don Nelson, who heretofore made Bobby Knight look player-friendly, has adopted the Cuban way. Maybe it’s just coincidence, but the Mavs entered this week tied for the second-best record in the brutal Western Conference.

What the rest of the NBA perceives as a nuthouse is rapidly becoming a model. So I’d give Cuban the commissioner’s job now, if for no other reason than because anyone who keeps David Stern and his fossiliferous fellows in such an ongoing state of dudgeon must be doing plenty of things right. And if the Mavs manage to topple L.A. in the playoffs and win a title, I say let Mad Mark have Colin Powell’s job for a while, just to give the rest of the world something to worry about.