NBA has ended the issue of playing the national anthem, but the result of Mark Cuban’s social experiment has yet to be seen

Editor’s note: This story has been updated since it was originally published. Last updated 20:15 Wednesday.

To hear Mark Cuban explain it now was the national reaction he unleashed, which began as a low rumble and quickly erupted into an explosion of debate, positive and negative.

The decision by the Cuban owner of Mavericks not to play the Star-Spangled Banner before Dallas’ home games was, according to him, a social experiment.

How soon will it be noticed? How would people react? The first answer comes later than he expected, first in Dallas’ 12th home game. The reaction began Tuesday night and as the uproar approached its Wednesday month, the NBA issued a blunt statement.

“As NBA teams now want to welcome fans back into their arena, all teams will play the national anthem in line with the long-standing league policy.”

Similarly, the problem was solved. Cuban immediately said the Mavericks would comply and, sure enough, the Star-Spangled Banner was played ahead of Dallas’ Wednesday night game against Atlanta at American Airlines Center.

However, Cuban says he hopes the discussions he has deliberately fueled on racial equality and, yes, patriotism will endure in a constructive way.

“We have no problem playing it,” he told The Dallas Morning News. “But we want these very important talks to continue.”

Cuban, in his 21st season as owner of Mavericks, has never shyed away from controversy. From previous experience, including in July last year when he put America’s “national anthem police” out of control, it was a flammable subject.

How effective was Cuban’s latest conversation start? Press secretary Jen Psaki was asked at the White House press conference on Wednesday afternoon what President Joe Biden thinks about Cuba’s decision to stop playing the national anthem.

“I have not yet spoken to him about Mark Cuban’s decision on the Dallas Mavericks, or should I say the national anthem,” Psaki said. ‘But I know he’s incredibly proud to be an American and has great respect for the national anthem and all that it represents, especially for our men and women in uniform who serve around the world.

‘He would also say that sharing pride in our country naturally means recognizing moments where we as a country have not lived up to our highest ideals, which is often and sometimes also what people talk to when they take action at sporting events, and that means to support the right of people, granted to them in the Constitution, to protest peacefully. ”

Texas Judge General Dan Patrick remained in the fray and announced that he would introduce the StarSpangled Banner Protection Act, Senate Bill 4 as one of his legislative priorities this session. He said the purpose of the bill is to ensure that the national anthem is played at all events in Texas that receive public funding.

“It’s hard to believe it could happen in Texas, but Mark Cuban’s actions yesterday made it clear that we need to specify that we should play the national anthem in Texas before all major events,” Patrick said in a statement. .

‘In this time in which so many things divide us, sport is one thing that brings us together: right, left, black, white and brown. This legislation already enjoys broad support. I’m sure it will pass, and the Star Spangled Banner will not be threatened in the Lone Star State again. ”

Two of the Mavericks ‘professional sports brothers in North Texas, the Dallas Stars and Texas Rangers, have issued statements that they additionally condemned Cubans’ national anthem decision without calling him by name.

In the capital letters, the Stars statement emphasized the national anthem “a tradition that has been around for a long time”, that the team will continue to play it and added: “As the only National Hockey League team in Texas, we are proud of it to represent our state and our country. ”

The Rangers call the national anthem: An important tradition that will continue to honor us at Globe Life Field. ‘

It was as if those franchises were making an effort to distance themselves from Cubans, or at least his national anthem decision.

But as Cubans have pointed out, anyone who believes he is an anti-nationalist can no longer be wrong – and miss the point of discussion he is trying to raise.

“We always respect and respect the passion that people have for the national anthem and our country,” he said. ‘But we also hear the voices of those who feel that the national anthem does not represent it. We feel that their voices should be respected and heard because it was not.

“Our hope is that in the future people will take the same passion as they do for this issue and use the same amount of energy to listen to those who feel differently from them. Then we can move forward and have courageous conversations that move this country forward and find what unites us. ”

Older Mavericks fans may recall that the team never played the national anthem during the 1980s to 1996 era among co-founders of the franchise Don Carter, the main owner; and Norm Sonju, the team president. Instead, God Bless America was played before home games.

The Mavericks started playing the national anthem when majority owner Ross Perot Jr. and minority owner Frank Zaccanelli bought the franchise in 1996, and continued to do so after the Cuban bought the franchise in 2000.

Meanwhile, the NBA rules have changed, requiring the national anthem to be played before matches and the players of the league to stand during the game.

These regulations were relaxed during the restart of the 2019-20 NBA season this past summer in the Disney World campus bubble environment. After the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police detention, and other deaths and injuries of coloreds while in custody, NBA players used the bubble setting amid the coronavirus pandemic as a platform to promote racial equality and police reform discuss.

When the national anthem was played in the bubble before four months of matches and play-offs, most players and coaches knelt down and usually closed the arms of the opposing team in solidarity and silent protest.

Cuban said on Wednesday that he believes many of the players ‘and coaches’ efforts have fallen on deaf ears – or been heard and forgotten too soon.

“Trying to bring about social change is never going to be easy,” he said during an appearance in ESPN’s The Jump. ‘We’ve seen it all summer. We listened to people. There were many people trying to stand up for what they believed in and were not really heard.

“These are difficult conversations that will not go away if we play the national anthem.”

According to Cuban, he and Cynthia Marshall, CEO of Mavericks, and other franchise leaders, as they approached this season, discussed the possibility of not playing the national anthem.

When the Mavericks played their only home game against Minnesota on December 17, in front of no fans while the pandemic raged, players and coaches of both teams stood on the field as teams traditionally do for playing the national anthem .

When no music starts, players look around in amazement, shrug their shoulders and return to their respective bench areas.

After a Dallas Morning News reporter at American Airlines Center to cover the match of the new NBA distance near the top of the bottom bowl, the scene seems to be a mistake. A supervision.

When home games of the regular season began, still without fans, it seemed as if no one noticed the lack of national anthem, or at least pointed it out in public.

Only on Monday’s home game against Minnesota – the first with fans but only about 1,500 frontline workers allowed for free – did a reporter from The Athletic notice the lack of national anthem and get the Cuban confirmation that it was his. decision.

Contrary to the report, however, Cuban said The news Tuesday night that he did not make a season-long decision. On Wednesday, he explained that the franchise leaders of Mavericks meet regularly and discuss the possible possibility that the team would play the national anthem again.

“When the games were over, we honestly kept talking about what we were going to do at some point,” he told The Jump. “But honestly it came to a point when it was reported that we did not play it in one of our matches.”

Mavericks players and coaches were, of course, well aware that the national anthem was not being played. Cuban story The news that the Mavericks also informed visiting teams ahead of time that there would be no national anthem. He said the Mavericks received no negative feedback.

By Wednesday night’s game, of course, the entire country knew what the Mavericks were doing, and reaction was pouring in from all parts of the country.

“It’s an animated discussion, which is certainly not surprising,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “It was Mark’s decision. He was steadfast about it. He had his reasons. . . It was quite a day. ‘

As for the NBA, the issue of playing the national anthem is over, but the end result of the Cuban social experiment will not be known for a while.

It depends on how the ongoing conversations unfold.

“I think something like that, if you have a result of something like that, you have to accept it,” Carlisle said. ‘It’s an opportunity for people to look at things differently.

“And you know, whether you agree or not, we all have to agree that we as Americans support the right to choose how we express ourselves, and that’s another fundamental thing that is very important.”

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