Josh Howard has somehow managed to out-****up himself. As a student at Wake Forest University, he duked it out with coaches Dave Odom and Skip Prosser. Since joining the Dallas Mavericks, he has admitted to smoking weed on the radio, been arrested for drag racing, and now has been recorded hating on the national anthem— and not just Kat DeLuna’s rendition of it.

According to the Dallas Morning News:

In a video posted on YouTube, the swingman is shown at Allen Iverson's charity flag football game in July. When the national anthem is being sung, various participants are shown mugging for the camera. When the camera gets to Howard, he says: " 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is going on. I don't celebrate this [expletive]. I'm black."

…Owner Mark Cuban said the Mavericks dealt with Howard's flag football episode after it happened in July.

"That said, we will be going through some advanced communication-skill sessions together this training camp," Cuban said Tuesday. "I have explained to him that cellphone cameras are not your friend and that what you think you said on camera is never what people will hear when it shows up on YouTube or TV.

"There is only one universal response that works: 'Both teams played hard.' "

If the Mavericks keep Howard on the team, they can’t afford to let him speak. He is far too much of a PR liability. In case the Mavericks have forgotten, sports and American patriotism are two sides of a co-dependent relationship, and Josh Howard is quickly turning into the abusive ex-boyfriend that comes to ruin the big date between athletics and national pride. Cuban needs to remember that a team is a brand, and Howard is burrowing the Mavericks’ brand into the ground with his stupidity.