Mark Cuban, following Ken Mauer's bad night: 'Make him ref a game in the D-League'
Mark Cuban wants the ref that blew an infamous call at the beginning of Monday’s Brooklyn Nets/Los Angeles Clippers contest to be suspended or briefly relegated to the minor leagues. Makes sense.
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Mark Cuban, without mentioning lead referee Ken Mauer by name, told the waiting press on Monday night that he wouldn’t mind seeing Mauer sit a few plays out after a missed traveling call(s) Mauer glossed over on Tuesday went viral, and following a contest that saw the veteran referee seemingly go out of his way to further punish Clippers coach Doc Rivers with what looked like an overreaction of a technical call.
Rivers was ejected from the game, following an age-appropriate attempt at a tussle, and the Dallas Mavericks owner thinks a blatant and transparent penalty is due after one and a half blatant misses from Mauer:
From the credentialed Tim MacMahon at ESPN:
“Suspend him, demote him, make him ref a game in the D-League,” Cuban said during his pregame workout Wednesday night.
Mauer, you’ll recall, was one of three referees alongside Lauren Holtkamp and Kevin Scott, that decided to ignore this wondrous DOUBLE TRAVEL on the first play of the game!
Mark?
“I’m almost ready to get fined after watching that double-dribble yesterday,” said Cuban, who has been fined more than $1.5 million over the years for comments about officiating.
“That was a classic. If that was us, I probably would have protested it, even if we would have lost, because then every SportsCenter would have played it over and over and over again. That was ridiculous and hopefully they take action.”
“That call? At the beginning of the game? Right in front of him?” Cuban said. “That wasn’t an error in judgment.
“Refs are going to miss things because there’s other things going on, but there was nothing else going on. It was the first or second play of the game, and he was standing right there.”
You might recall that we defended NBA referees when Steve Kerr recently kvetched about the ongoing travel calls that he sees from all angles while watching from the Warriors bench, kindly reminding both Steve and fans that, while Steve might be absolutely correct in referencing missed calls, with so much going on sometimes it is tough to juggle the obvious calls with the less pronounced. Traveling calls, as Cuban points out, are never judgment calls. But they are sometimes overlooked with so much more (per fan and league request, unless you like players mauling each other and 67-62 games) on a referee’s plate.
In this instance? There’s no excuse. Kerr was fined $25,000 for pointing out missed whistles that did not go reported.
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For Mark Cuban, the travels went reported. It will be interesting to see, as discussed recently in the Dwyane Wade vs. Last Two-Minute Reports back-and-forth, if the NBA takes it easy on Cuban while knowing that the Dallas Mavericks owner is absolutely right about the blown call. “Calls,” if we’re honest.
Usually we’d take our usual tone with Mark, polished off and on the ready since the 2000-01 season, in telling him to settle down a bit with that T-shirt in public. Cuban, however, hinted at something altogether spookier!
Cuban indicated that Mauer’s missed calls was evidence of a bigger issue, but Cuban declined to be more specific when pressed on what that problem might be.
“This wasn’t just a missed call. This was something else,” Cuban said. “I don’t know what it was. Sometimes it’s the problem; sometimes it’s the symptom of a problem. I think this is more reflective of a symptom of a problem.”
Ah, yes, a “symptom of” an unnamed “problem.” Delicious! More guesswork for all of us, as Cuban hoards that decade and a half’s work of referee studies that, when made public, would no doubt reveal that not only is Ken Mauer the reason that Harold Ramis and Bill Murray fell out 23-years ago, but he’s also the guy that made it so NBA League Pass is hard to watch on your computer.
The trick here, if you’ll allow, is not to focus on the traveling distraction. Don’t waste your time railing against Kenny Mauer, after he rails against a Broadway play and Saturday Night Live.
The Clippers have a notorious history with referee Lauren Holtkamp, who gave Rivers his first and deserved technical foul on Tuesday night. Rivers rightfully went ballistic when Mauer appeared to go out of his way to give Rivers a second technical after it looked as if the Rivers/Holtkamp back-and-forth had respectfully, concluded.
Mauer, to his discredit, waited three whole questions before losing his temper in a press setting that Cuban, coaches and players pleasantly perform in on a daily basis:
Transcript: NBA Referee Ken Mauer Comments to Pool Reporter after Clippers-Nets Game pic.twitter.com/9uhG17YKxA
— NBA Official (@NBAOfficial) November 30, 2016
The Dumb Guy Guess would have us throwing a furrowed brow over at Mauer for overcompensating to strike down another coach for going at the Shield, using a target in Holtkamp that he and his star player Chris Paul have goaded and chirped at for years.
Cuban likely has a deeper, possibly sourced by data, explanation for the “symptom of a problem.” He’d probably chide us for thinking that Watergate was mostly about sticking duct tape on the door locks of the side entrance to the complex.
A showy and one-time demotion to the D-League, for someone of Ken Mauer’s stature, is unprecedented. The NBA likes to be a little more tactful with these sorts of things, merely lowering the game load without fuss and keeping the year-long grading system in mind when it comes time to assign Mauer (as lead official) and others to postseason contests.
For Cuban, that sort of reasonable thinking comes far too late for his buddies in Los Angeles:
“Because the quality of officiating matters in this game, you know?” Cuban said. “Standings are impacted. Mistakes happen. Lots of calls are hard, but not all of them. Some of them are just lack of focus and attention, and that’s the one thing you should be able to avoid at all times, particularly from such an experienced ref.”
He’s not wrong. Mauer had no excuse for glossing over the embarrassing travel(s) miss, and if the Holtkamp back-up was symptomatic of something with a bit more heft than the “Brooklyn, on a Tuesday night in November”-setting suggests, then we have a significant problem.
Until we learn more, sadly, the status quo – and not a night spent working in Fort Wayne – still appears to be the answer. If Ken Mauer has issues that would prevent him from calling a fair game, then a trip to the D-League won’t fix what already ails his perspective.
If he had a really bad night, though, then what is a D-League stint going to do? What are we trying to do, take his phone away to make sure his grades go up by the end of the semester?
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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
