Mark Cuban Says He Told Mavericks to Stop Playing Anthem

The league rule book has required players to stand during the national anthem since the 1980s, but Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, said in December that the rule would not be strictly enforced this season. The league also chose not to enforce the rule during its restarting of the 2019-20 season in a bubble environment at Walt Disney World in Florida, where many players opted to kneel during the anthem to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement and to demonstrate against systemic racism and social injustice in the United States.

“I recognize that this is a very emotional issue on both sides of the equation in America right now, and I think it calls for real engagement rather than rule enforcement,” Silver said in December.

The anthem has not been played at American Airlines Center in Dallas before any of the Mavericks’ 13 preseason or regular-season home games this season. In a victory on Monday night over Minnesota, Dallas became one of the 11 teams in the league that are admitting reduced crowds — 1,500 frontline workers in the health care and food-service industries, as well as police officers, firefighters and other emergency workers.

This, however, is not the first time in franchise history that the club has declined to play the national anthem before games. For the club’s first 16 years of existence, when it was owned by Donald Carter, “God Bless America” was sung instead before home games at the old Reunion Arena. The Mavericks began playing the national anthem after the team was purchased by Ross Perot Jr. on May 1, 1996. Cuban bought the Mavericks in January 2000.

In an interview on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” last June, before the N.B.A. resumed the 2019-20 season, Cuban said he would support players who knelt during the anthem as a form of protest.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/sports/basketball/dallas-mavericks-national-anthem.html