The National Basketball Referees Association is aggressively asserting that the NBA is cowing to Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, charging him with pursuing a competitive advantage for his team “via threats and intimidation” toward game referees.

The Vertical obtained a series of memorandums distributed recently among the league’s 64 referees – including correspondences between the NBRA and NBA – that describe over a year of discord between the referees and league office, largely centered on Cuban.

In a recent letter to Byron Spruell, the NBA’s president of league operations, NBRA general counsel Lee Seham outlined what the union considers to be a lengthy pattern of documented violations by Cuban of the NBA constitution and “undue influence of the league’s management of its officials.”

“We consider the threat to the integrity of NBA basketball presented by Mr. Cuban’s misconduct to be real and growing,” Seham wrote on Dec. 9.

Cuban has been a longtime critic of the league’s officiating and referee management, accruing over seven figures in financial fines through the years for his public criticisms and behavior regarding referees. Cuban has been adamant in his displeasure over the quality, training and oversight of referees.

In response to the league rejecting Seham’s premise that Cuban holds an “inappropriate influence” over referee employment decisions, the union’s general counsel responded: “No other owner has communicated to our members with such force that he exercises control over their careers. He has communicated that he played a pivotal role in the termination of Kevin Fehr, a referee who met league performance standards. He has communicated to an NBRA board member, during contract negotiations, that the referees would continue to be at-will employees. He has told a referee, during a game, that he follows that referee’s game reports.”

Mark Cuban purchased the Mavericks in 2000. (Getty Images) More

NBA spokesman Mike Bass told The Vertical on Thursday: “We have no specific response to Lee Seham, the lawyer who represents the referees union. This approach is just the latest in a series of steps Mr. Seham has taken in an attempt to undermine the necessary transparency we have brought to our game.

“We will not be deterred or distracted from continuing to focus on improving our officiating.”

In a telephone conference call that included many of the NBA’s 64 referees this week, Spruell was met with several strong admonishments from individual referees decrying a lack of league support toward them, said sources with knowledge of the call. Also, the teleconference included dialogue between referees and Spruell that both sides considered constructive too, sources said.

In several internal and external memos over the past year, Seham portrays a league office unable to control or mollify Cuban, raising fears that his reported behavior is emboldening others to disregard league norms and rules.

Read Mark Cuban’s full response to the NBRA’s assertions here

“To suggest I have influence is to suggest that the NBA officials can be influenced,” Cuban told The Vertical in an email. “If an official can be influenced by pressure from anyone, they should not be in the NBA. I don’t believe they can be influenced. As far as my influence on employment, several years ago I sent a list to the NBA of officials who had been NBA officials for more than a decade and never made the playoffs.

“I asked why we weren’t bringing in better officials than those who weren’t able to crack the top half of officials. [I think it’s 37 who get selected as playoff refs.] I also asked if being an NBA official was a lifetime job and at what point do we recognize that there is someone else out there who can do a better job? I did this knowing that any terminated refs could receive substantial pensions. As far as anything else, I’ve been the same way since I bought the team and have no reason to change.”

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