DALLAS (105.3 The Fan) - Mavericks owner Mark Cuban gave his first interview since the NBA announced Wednesday that all teams will play the national anthem before each game.
Cuban and the Mavs haven't played the anthem at their first 13 games and were reportedly set to continue to not play the anthem at future games.
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However, in an interview on ESPN"s 'The Jump,' Cuban said the organization hadn't made the decision to permanently stop playing the national anthem.
Here's what he said about that:
Cuban: "Let me take it because there is a lot of misinformation out there. First, we're always talking to our community. That's something Cynt (Mavs CEO Cynt Marshall) stands for and is very insistent upon, and has become a core part of who we are at the Dallas Mavericks. In listening to the community, there were quite a few people that voiced their concerns or fears that the national anthem did not fully represent them - their voices were not really being heard.
"And, so, we've had a lot of conversations about whether or not we should play the anthem. So, during the first preseason game, we decided to not play it and just see what the response was - knowing that we were going to have on-going conversations about it. We didn't make any decision to never play the national anthem. That wasn't the case at all. We didn't cancel the national anthem. We still had our flag flying proud up on the wall at the American Airlines Center, and everybody had the opportunity to address it, and pray to it, or salute it, or whatever their feelings are. As the games went by, honestly, we kept on talking about what we were going to do at some point. But, obviously, it came to a head when it was reported that at one of our games that we hadn't played it. The bottom line is we had always discussed the fact that we would probably end up playing it at some point, probably when fans came back. But there was never any found decision that we would not play the anthem."
You can watch the entire interview below.