Mark Cuban Files a Protest

Erick Dampier was ejected on Friday night for throwing an elbow. His boss, Mark Cuban, strongly disagreed with, to say the least: “Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban officially filed a protest with the NBA office on Sunday over what he termed ‘misapplication of the rules’ by the officiating crew during Friday night’s overtime loss to the Houston Rockets … Cuban had 48 hours after the game to file the protest and send a $10,000 fee to the league. NBA officials have five days to rule on the protest.The officiating crew was Ken Mauer, Brian Forte and John Goble. ‘There are several circumstances where you can assign a technical for an elbow, and we said that’s fine, we don’t have a problem with that….But when you look at that video, there’s no question that wasn’t an elbow with intention to harm, there wasn’t even an elbow thrown,’ Cuban said. ‘By any reasonable standard, that change should have been made. I’m sure the ref didn’t know he could make that change, which is a misapplication of the rules.”‘