Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban has a problem with the way defensive three seconds is (not) being called. After the Mavs' 98-95 loss to the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday, Cuban told reporters in the locker room that he wanted to say something.
The video, via D210 TV:
The quotes, via ESPN's Tim McMahon:
"I know it's not the league, so somewhere along the line, officials have chosen not to call defensive three seconds," Cuban said, addressing reporters in the middle of the locker room after the game, a rarity for him. "You guys can probably hear us counting, right? Five, six, seven. ... We've had games, multiple games already -- the last one we turned in, the league agreed that they missed nine defensive-three calls. And these aren't, 'OK, it's 3.1, it's 3.2 and it's wrong.' These are six, seven, eight and, in one case, nine seconds of standing in there. Again, you probably heard us screaming and yelling from the bench and counting to five and six.
"It's not a tough rule. I don't know what's happened, but it's changed the game," Cuban said. "We've even started to tell our guys, 'Just stand in the paint and don't move,' but some teams have figured it out before us. So it's just wrong."
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"Again, I don't know who came up with the decision," he said. "The league just sent out a memo that defensive three was an emphasis, so I don't think it came from the league. Somewhere underneath them, the decision has been made, I don't know by who, not to call defensive three."
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"Something's going on, and I have no idea what it is. When I ask the league, they say, 'Oh, there's nothing going on. They're just missed.' Something's going on. Something's happening, and I don't think it's at the league level, but officials have chosen not to call defensive three seconds and, in some cases, offensive three seconds."
Defensive three-second violations have occurred slightly more frequently this year than last year, per nbasavant.com, but that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how accurately it is being officiated. Cuban rarely will talk to the media right after a game, and he said that he will "let other people help me get answers" because he doesn't have any. Clearly, he had been thinking about calling the refs out on this, and he decided it was the right time.
Without going back and looking for instances where the defensive three seconds has gone uncalled, I can't confirm this is as big of a problem as Cuban said it is this season. Historically, though, Cuban has been the loudest voice when it has come to calling for referee reform. He deserves a lot of credit for officiating getting better and more transparent in the past few years.
Also: according to Haralabos Voulgaris, the number of defensive three-second violations has been cut in half since about 2011. Seems relevant.
