The Dallas Mavericks announced a lousy decision this week. At the direction of team owner Mark Cuban, the team will no longer play the National Anthem before its games.

Actually, they will. In a rare show of admittedly mild courage, the NBA announced on Thursday that all teams will play the anthem before their games. Still, the anthem question is a sustaining point of contention in professional sports. What began with Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling has now latched on to Cuban’s ego. The Mavericks announcement reflects Cuban’s choice of division over making lives better.