Cuban wants Ken Mauer disciplined: 'Make him ref a game in the D-League'

On the surface, Mark Cuban didn't appear to have any skin in the Los Angeles Clippers-Brooklyn Nets game on Tuesday. But the Dallas Mavericks owner has made a habit of caping up for the Integrity of the Game - and an egregious missed call on the opening possession sent him into a tizzy.

Referee Ken Mauer stood idly by, swallowed his whistle, and allowed play to continue despite watching Bojan Bogdanovic blatantly double-dribble right in front of him. For that, Cuban would like to see the NBA make an example of Mauer.

"Suspend him, demote him, make him ref a game in the D-League," Cuban suggested Wednesday, according to ESPN's Tim MacMahon.

Cuban also insisted the blown call was part of a deeper problem, though he declined to specify.

"That call? At the beginning of the game? Right in front of him?" Cuban continued. "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. ... This wasn't just a missed call. This was something else."

While he acknowledged that neither he nor his team was directly impacted by the non-call, Cuban is concerned about the ripple effects of such blatant negligence.

"The quality of officiating matters in this game, you know?" he 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."