Report: At Mark Cuban’s direction, the Mavericks have stopped playing the national anthem before home games
Mark Cuban #MarkCuban
The Dallas Mavericks have opted to stop playing the national anthem before home games.
Cuban on Tuesday night confirmed the decision to SportsDay’s Brad Townsend, which was first reported by The Athletic and later confirmed by ESPN.
Per the reports, Cuban and the Mavericks do not plan to resume the pregame tradition before games in the future. NBA commissioner Adam Silver was consulted on the decision. While no official policy changes were announced by the franchise, “The Star-Spangled Banner” has not been played prior to any of the Mavs’ games at the American Airlines Center in Dallas this season.
An absent anthem isn’t a first in Mavericks’ history. Dallas played “God Bless America” before games for the franchise’s first 16 seasons.
The Mavs informed other teams of their decision to forgo the anthem and received no complaints from around the league. The team has also indicated their surprise that it took 13 games for the masses to realize the change.
Cuban and other Mavericks leadership had previously gone on the record about supporting players who opted to kneel or protest during the song.
“If they were taking a knee and they were being respectful, I’d be proud of them,” Cuban said in June, adding that his feelings about the issue have evolved since three years ago, when he said he encourages his players to put their hand over their heart during the anthem. “Hopefully I’d join them because I think we’ve learned a lot since 2017.”
In a tweet that he later deleted, Cuban said in July that the “National Anthem Police” in America are out of control.
Also in July, Cuban clashed on Twitter with Texas senator Ted Cruz over supporting players’ protests for social justice and the NBA’s activity in China. The owner and the former presidential candidate took shots at each other’s testicular fortitude.
This story will be updated when more information becomes available.
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