Mark Cuban says NBA refs ‘just decide themselves’ which rules to enforce

For a while, Minnesota Timberwolves star guard Anthony Edwards had an unorthodox free-throw routine. He would often take a step over the free-throw line after each attempt while the ball was still in the air, but lately, he’s altered his free-throw ritual to remove that.

Edwards recently hinted that he had to make the change because of some past comments from Dallas Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban in which the billionaire brought attention to it because refs weren’t enforcing it. Cuban then implied in a recent X post that refs around the league “just decide themselves” which rules to enforce.

“This has nothing to do with Ant,” Cuban wrote on X. “It was the fact that @NBAOfficial s chose not to make an easy call.

“That’s the issue. It’s not Adam Silver telling them what to call or not. They just decide themselves.

“I brought it up to the head of officials when we played the twolves in the playoffs 2 years ago. When Ant hit game winning FTs against us, and obviously stepped over the line.

“The people in charge of the refs ignored it. They also ignored it in the L2M report. (Something they do a lot of )

“But if you speak about it on NBA podcasts, that changes their behavior.

“So many changes in officiating that have changed the game dramatically, like using contact to create space for a shot. That wasn’t in the game till recently. It wasn’t a directive from Adam Silver.

“All the fouls that started getting called mid season 2 years ago and have accelerated further now so that FTs are skyrocketing. That doesn’t come from the top. It comes from the officials. I don’t even think it’s an organized decision. If they make a call, or don’t , and they don’t want it identified as a miss, they just keep doing it.”

For as much as it may be aggravating for Edwards to have to tweak his routine, it doesn’t seem like the tinkering has negatively impacted his ability to make shots from the charity stripe too severely. For example, he got to the line 11 times in Minnesota’s victory over the Boston Celtics on Saturday and knocked down all but one of those attempts.

Moreover, Edwards is shooting 82.3 percent from the line this season, and that’s one of the better free-throw percentages of his pro career. He’s a career 80.5 percent free-throw shooter. It’s worth noting, however, that his percentage is still slightly down this season compared to where it was over each of the last two seasons.

There may be some truth to Cuban’s jab that referees pay attention to what gets said about them on podcasts, but only to an extent. Cuban is a high-profile figure in the NBA who’s been around the league for many years, but referees likely aren’t too concerned with what some random fans have to say about the league’s officiating.

Edwards’ free-throw percentage will be a number worth tracking as the season goes on, but the early returns on his tinkered routine at the line are encouraging. Perhaps he will be equally as effective putting the ball through the net from the stripe when the Timberwolves do battle against the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday night. The Spurs are winners of their last two games.