Mark Cuban as vice president is a fine-able idea

I don’t know what’s more ludicrous: the idea of Mark Cuban as our country’s vice president or the idea that he thinks he would have substantive input as our country’s vice president.

His claim to fame is being fined about $2 million by the NBA for various outbursts as owner of the Mavericks and for being a regular on a reality show. So, yes, he’s eminently qualified to be one heartbeat from the presidency. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press’’ over the weekend, Cuban said he’s open to talking with either of the leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

“If (Trump) asked me, I’d be like, ‘OK, Donald. That’s great. Let’s talk about it. But we’re both going to have to dig in and really look and understand the issues so we can come up with solutions,’ ’’ he said.

Being vice president is like being deputy NBA commissioner, which is to say there’s no way Cuban could handle being so far in the background. This is the guy who gets as much camera time as any of the Mavericks players. That tends to happen when you make sure you’re sitting courtside and hopping up and down on every other play.

The vice president serves the president. If that means making a trip to Bulgaria for a state funeral, he does it. If that means getting more cream for the boss’ coffee, he does it. Cuban’s ego isn’t built for that. It’s built for being in charge and letting everybody know he’s in charge.

The only way this works is if President Trump or President Clinton is allowed to fine Vice President Cuban $100,000 every time he says something stupid. I think we just solved the national debt problem.

Cuban built his fortune by starting businesses and selling them, which makes him an icon of the start-up crowd. He has parlayed that into lots of attention. He has plenty of opinions and thinks everybody should hear them. Sort of like a sports columnist. But I don’t know many sports columnists who want to be vice president.

Unless …