The NBA today announced that all teams must play the national anthem before games. This decision comes on the heels of the Mavericks revealing they had not played it before any of their home games this season. The league in a statement said, “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 DAILY). Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban said of the league's announcement, "We are good with it" (TWITTER.com, 2/10).
Cuban said the team initially halted the anthem because “we’re always talking to our community” and there were “quite a few people that voiced their concerns, and really their fears, that the national anthem did not fully represent them, that their voices were not being heard.” The Mavs “still had our flag flying proud,” and “we had always discussed the fact that we probably would end up playing it at some point, probably when fans came back." Cuban said in the past day he “talked some” to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver about the issue (“The Jump,” ESPN, 2/10).
