One day after Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban confirmed to ESPN that his team had stopped playing the national anthem before games, the NBA on Wednesday issued a statement saying that wouldn’t be the case going forward.
“With NBA teams now in the process of welcoming fans back into their arenas, all teams will play the national anthem in keeping with longstanding league policy,” the league said in a statement.
Cuban on Tuesday told ESPN that he had made the decision to stop playing the national anthem before home games after consulting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver. The Mavericks did not announce the change in policy, but the national anthem has not been played before any of their 13 preseason and regular-season games at the American Airlines Center this season.
Following the NBA’s announcement, the Mavericks announced that the anthem would be played prior to their game against the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday night.
In a corresponding statement, Cuban said, “We respect and always have respected the passion people have for the anthem and our country. But we also loudly hear the voices of those who feel that the anthem does not represent them. We feel that their voices need to be respected and heard, because they have not been.
“Going forward, our hope is that people will take the same passion they have for this issue and apply the same amount of energy to listen to those who feel differently from them. Only then we can move forward and have courageous conversations that move this country forward and find what unites us.”
The Mavericks did not have fans for their first 10 regular-season games before allowing 1,500 vaccinated essential workers to attend Monday’s game against Minnesota for free.
The NBA’s rulebook requires players to stand during the national anthem, but Silver has declined to enforce that rule, particularly as kneeling during the anthem became a popular way to protest social injustice in recent years.
Cuban’s decision reverberated around the country, including a question put to White House press secretary Jen Psaki during her daily briefing Wednesday. Athlete protests of social and racial injustice during the anthem became a flashpoint between then-President Donald Trump and various leagues during his administration.
Psaki said she had not spoken to President Joe Biden about the issue.
“I know he’s incredibly proud to be an American and has great respect for the anthem and all that it represents,” Psaki said. “He’d also say, of course, that part of pride in our country means recognizing where we as a country haven’t lived up to our highest ideals.”
The vast majority of NBA players and many coaches kneeled during the national anthem during the NBA’s restart last summer in Orlando, Florida, when the league incorporated messaging supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and other social justice causes in the court design and other ways.
In a June interview on ESPN’s Outside the Lines, Cuban expressed support for players kneeling during the national anthem as a form of protest.
“If they were taking a knee and they were being respectful, I’d be proud of them. Hopefully I’d join them,” Cuban said.
Cuban added then that he hoped the league would “allow players to do what’s in their heart.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
