OT - Donald Sterling Banned from NBA for Life
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced today that (likely soon to be former) LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling is banned from any type of involvement with the league or the Clippers for the duration of his life. This punishment also came with a $2.5M fine, which is the most allowed under the bylaws of the NBA's constitution. Silver also said that the league and its owners will do all things possible to force the sale of the Clippers. Props to Adam Silver and the league's front office for doing everything in their power to remove this horrible person from the league's ranks.
He doesn't own the team he owns an NBA franchise. I wonder what the NBA contract language between franchisee and franchiser says.
see how it is enforceable. What the man said on that tape was outrageous, I am not defending him or his views, but how can you tell an owner of an NBA team that he cannot go to any NBA games? How can you tell anybody that they cannot go to an NBA game short of a court/restraining order? I don't know if Sterling is going to be of a mind to challenge this but I am sure there are plenty of attorneys who may have other ideas for Mr. Silver. I just don't see how such a "ban" can be enforced.
I posted this above, but essentially the NBA owners have agreed that the commissioner's rulings are "final, binding, and conclusive" and that they have the legal force of arbitration, and it's extremely unlikely for contract language like that to be voided by a judge.
Q: Sterling is notoriously litigious. Can he go to court to stop Silver from punishing him?
A: Not effectively. When Silver issues his punishment to Sterling, the decision is final. The constitution provides in Paragraph 24(m) that a commissioner's decision shall be "final, binding, and conclusive" and shall be as final as an award of arbitration. It is almost impossible to find a judge in the United States judicial system who would set aside an award of arbitration. Sterling can file a lawsuit, but he would face a humiliating defeat early in the process. There is no antitrust theory or principle that would help him against Silver and the NBA. He could claim an antitrust violation, for example, if he were trying to move his team to a different market. But under the terms of the NBA constitution, he has no chance to succeed in litigation over punishment.
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/10852199/challenge-donald-sterli…
XKCD for the win, as usual.
Definitely happy to see this guy banned, however I do think punishments in the sports world are VERY inconsistent with the rest of life.
For instance, Ron Artest went after fans in the stands and was not banned for life. Is being a racist sack of shit worse than physically assaulting helpless fans (the wrong ones at that)? I don't know. The McGary punishment in the NCAA had me thinking about what sports model I would prefer to see in college in terms of punishments and it seems like in MLB, NBA, and NFL you can get away with a lot more shady crap but the second you are not PC or get caught with PEDs your career is ruined.
Just doesn't make sense to me.
Who thinks that's adorable? Even putting aside the very different histories of black and white Americans, I'm not sure I can think of many people who would be happy if a black person said he didn't want his girlfriend seen at NBA games with white people.
Yes, black people have so many more privileges than white people.
You really need to leave.
April 29th, 2014 at 11:57 PM ^
It's completely different and I shouldn't have to explain to you why.
Does it make discrimination or racist comments right? Hell no. It's wrong no matter if you're an owner or nightshift housekeeper. But the consequences are quite different and you know that.
The nightshift housekeeper isn't representing a league or its image like an owner is. That's not to say he can't be fired or a player can't be cut or a fan can't be removed from a stadium...but all of those are different people/positions with different consequences. You can't compare this to Riley Cooper.
I'm not promoting racism in any way, but I agree when it comes to things like Artest. From what I've seen, Sterling's actions (hirings, draft picks, etc.) have not seemed to promote racism. A private conversation is not as bad as a public physical attack, especially when Sterling talks about his own beliefs and doesn't suggest physical harm or anything.
If the other owners want to vote him out, I think that should be allowed. You're all essentially running a business together. But for the NBA itself to ban him, I think that steps over the line.
It's not the NBA, but I remember when Leonard Little got convicted of involuntary manslaughter and was still allowed to play in the NFL afterward. Donte Stallworth had the same issue. If you can KILL SOMEONE and still participate in a major sport, I don't see how saying (and I'm paraphrasing) "Don't bring those people to my games!" is worse.
Again, let me say that I'm not supporting Sterling at all. He's always been an idiot, this is just another example, and racism is absolutely ridiculous. But "justice" seems to be meted out a little randomly sometimes.
Jim Irsay got caught drinking and driving, while in posession of narcotics. He got a small suspension for breaking the law. He could have killed someone
Sterling said something atrocious at home. He is suspended for life and his life will be a living hell.
I feel these are opposite of what I would expect.
I think the answer, if one wants one, is that people are more sympathetic to painkiller addicts and people who commit manslaughter via car accidents than they are overt racists. You could argue that the first two groups have failings while the latter group has necessarily affirmatively embraced something bad. I don't know that this distinction really holds up - especially since Sterling seemed to reject the notion that he is a racist in the recording - but the overly racist are in any event a very unpopular group (and with good reason, of course).
Trying not to start an argument about addition...
...trying so hard...
...still trying...
...obviously it's up to you whether you want to go there.
April 30th, 2014 at 12:04 AM ^
...his life is not going to be a living hell.
GTFO with that garbage.
He's 81, he's worth almost 2 billion, and he can't go to NBA games and his life is hell? Wow. Get some f-ing perspective.
How about a parent that lost a child to cancer...THAT has to be hell. How about a child losing both parents before 10...THAT has to be hell. How about being born with a painful disease or condition...THAT has to be hell.
An 81 year old racist billionaire can't go watch the fucking LA Clippers and now people want to feel sorry for him? Jeez. I guess he and Princess Lacey's (MSU girl that died of cancer) parents must be feeling the same thing these days.
Come on people, let's have some perspective...
You're not looking very hard then. There's all sorts of evidence his racism affected both his management of the Clippers and his management of his real estate empire.
I'll admit I'm not a big-time Clippers fan, nor am I a biographer of Donald Sterling. Would you like to enlighten me? Or send me a link that explains his racist ways of running a basketball team?
The leagues in question didn't think those things would cost the league money.
The NBA thinks the Sterling situation WILL cost the league money.
There is your difference.
Money talks, I guess. You're right.
Artest's actions revealed a person capable of snapping and what they could do in an instant.
Sterling's actions reveal a disgusting worldview, one that reinforces lawsuits brought against him as a slumlord.
You really don't see the difference there?
"Sterling's actions reveal a disgusting worldview."
How dare he have a disgusting worldview! There should be laws against people having opinions that don't conform!
You can punch people all you want, but opinions are where I draw the line.
Assault is worse than a racist opinion. Sterling deserved his fate and so did Artest. Artest is a lunatic and Sterling is a scumbag. I don't think either belong in any professional setting, much less the NBA.
It depends on whose racism we're talking about. If the President of the United States thinks that blacks can't effectively serve in the armed forces and therefore keeps them out, then that's worse than what Artest did, because it affects so many people negatively.
I think/hope people aren't upset simply b/c Sterling said something bad but rather because what he said implies that he's let his business decisions be influenced by racism. Racism possessed by a guy who owns a bunch of apartments and who owns a pro basketball team can do a lot of damage. Racism possessed by a guy who doesn't have a pot to piss in probably won't hurt anyone.
What has he done in regard to basketball, though? From what I can tell, he's hired and drafted just as many blacks as any other GM. He's hired a fair number of black coaches (Paul Silas, Alvin Gentry, Dennis Johnson, Doc Rivers) and at least one black GM that I can remember (Elgin Baylor). I don't know about the whole slumlord/apartments thing, so I can't speak to that.
There was a time when Elgin Baylor was one of only two black GMs in the NBA. And as you say, he's hired black coaches. Did he hire them and then treat them like crap? Baylor claimed that was the case with him. If true, what does that mean we should think about Sterling? I don't know with any great specificity.
A tangential thought: An odd thing about racism is how inconsistently even overt racists indulge it. At the risk of being political, Strom Thurmond fathered a child with a black woman at about the time he was running on a "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever" presidential ticket...This second paragraph is truly just a stray observation and not a point about Sterling in particular.
Elgin Baylor's comments now seem odd. Why would he work for Sterling for 22 years if the work environment was that bad?
Because there was more to his job than his relationship with his boss?
I've worked for a couple of terrible bosses; I stuck it out because I liked the job itself, the rest of the people I worked with were pretty cool and frankly I didn't think the boss would be around long.
Did you work two decades for a terrible boss? When the boss owns the franchise, I think you have to expect him to stick around awhile.
I don't really mean this as a defense of Sterling. He sure seems like a scumbag. The flipside of this is that no one could ever understand why Sterling kept Baylor as his GM as long as he did, despite awful results. He's just a terrible owner in every way possible.
No, point taken. But Sterling's looked like he was on death's door for a long time now--it wouldn't have been a stretch anytime in the last 15 or so of those 22 years to suspect he might not be your boss for all that much longer. At least not actively.
And as you say, Baylor's results weren't exactly stellar and he probably couldn't have landed that same job elsewhere. I don't think there's any doubt he loves the game--maybe it was worth putting up with crap from the boss? If I landed my dream job and the only problem with it was the boss, I'd probably be willing to put up with quite a bit.
I'm not sure I see the contradiction in your second paragraph. Quite a few men have fathered children with women they did not view as their equals. Historically, Thurmond wasn't even an outlier.
but for all intensive purposes, Sterling just made his continued ownership completely untenable. With Sterling, the Clippers are something to be ashamed of, and I don't see how that could possibly work as a business that depends on fandom.
For his own interests, I think he has to sell. Maybe not immediately--he has enough money to fight off attempts at triggering a firesale-but sometime in the near horizon I think he has to sell.
Tough/unusual cases make for bad law.
April 30th, 2014 at 12:37 AM ^
Donald Sterling's housing discrimination is infinitely worse than ron artest punching somebody.
it is all about money. As long as sponsors not pull out over beating a fan, the dude can still play.
Well, perhaps not after taxes.
I am starting to wonder if there is any truth to the conspiracy theory that Magic put DS's girlfriend up to this so he could buy the team. Why would she sell the audio to TMZ for 500,000 when DS probably would have paid alot of hush money for it to go away. Magic was in the original picture and is the favorite to become part owner. I don't normally believe in these things, but seems awfully simple.
...in all conspiracy theories. Anytime something gets this much media attention (especially when everybody seems to gang up on something/someone) then you know there's something fishy involved.
I wish I had time to dig up some info on this Sterling guy but I'm too busy trying to find "proof" that the moon is really a spaceship. Anybody got any tips on that one?
First, asking for hush money would be extortion. That's not smart.
Second, Magic Johnson has never struck me as any kind of evil genius. The idea that he could have foreseen the extraordinary consequences of having his picture taken at a game is funny though.
I think the answer is that people refuse to do business with people for all sorts of reasons, and those reasons don't have to be rooted in illegality to be valid.
That's a load of crap. Just own it.
No need to resort to name calling. He posed a logical question with the current circumstances.
logical, but a very important question. The only law that was broken in this circumstances was possibly the conversation being taped. I know that this is not PC in the moment, but things are treading awfully close to thought police territory right now. You are not going to find one person to support what Sterling said on that tape, but there are other issues here, other alarming issues.