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.
it is a low bar if you are only comparing commissioners of professional sports. But I'm also including college commissioners, from the NCAA on down thru the conferences.
Silver doesn't have an easy road ahead of him with this issue and other issues of the NBA. And I'm not much of a fan of NBA basketball, but no doubt i'm now a fan of Silver.
HiYo Silver, AWAAAYYYY (with Sterling, that is) !!!
what he did was fantastic but this was an incredibly easy decision for Silver and the rest of the NBA owners so I'm not sure how much props to actually give. They are doing the right thing under an everest sized mountain of negative PR and pressure. Had they done this years ago when he was settling record lawsuits for housing dicrimination, then I would be more inclined to say how great the commish and owners are.
Now? They are covering their collective asses here.
The man was a known racist with record fines for the way he ran his businesses. Though I'm sure it was well known within the NBA, no action was taken before today because that fact was not widely discussed in the media and thus had no economic impact on the NBA. The actions taken today were good, but I think there's no evidence that they were done for a moral reason rather than an economic reason--and it was a very easy economic decision.
It seems that Sterling is a person I would not like very much, with racist views and dating a woman many years his junior, all while married. Sterling's a total jackass from the looks of things, and if the NBA By-Laws allow for his expulsion, it's hard to muster much sympathy for him.
That stated, I hope that the sports media stops using this as an opportunity to grandstand against racism without really doing much about it. The man was a disgrace for years, but until his paramour (yeah - I said it) surreptitiously recorded him he was in line for a NAACP achievement award.
Put another way, it's great that they are pillorying Sterling. But racism is an awfully thorny issue, and I hope that the NBA et al. don't think they are fulfilling their need to eradicate racism by going after this low-hanging fruit.
Right, structural racism is much harder to identify and actually deal with than a dude shouting epithets. David Stern (and the other owners) deserves a lot of criticism for ignoring Sterling and letting the issue fester until Silver had to deal with it today.
The circumstances behind that award have been well-documented---and it is an embarrassment for that chapter of the NAACP.
what's so surprising about David Stern looking the other way?
I would imagine that Sterling greased a few palms with all that $$$. Both chose the status quo.
I think the fine and suspension were fair, but rather than attempt to push him out, I'd like to see the NBA go the route as proposed by Houston's owner: Declare all Clipper players to be able to void their current contract and become free agents immediately, citing a hostile work environment. Let Sterling make his own decision to sell or keep the team based on its value once Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have signed with other teams.
The problem with this argument is that you are going to have to create an exception that allows these newly-freed players from counting against the roster quota for the teams they sign with, as otherwise you are costing 12-14 other guys their roster spots on those other teams and the union won't go for it.
"Let Sterling make his own decision to sell or keep the team based on its value once Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have signed with other teams."
I think they might well be able to let him make the decision based on his team's value without advertising revenue.
April 30th, 2014 at 12:42 AM ^
And if he did...how competitive would it be? How would that be fair to the rest of the league? How would he fill the stands? How would he play games when other teams refused to play there? How would that be fair to teams that had to forfeit more games because they had games @ LAC more than other teams - thus lost more games because all teams refused to play in that arena?
It can't be 29 teams and the death penalty for one.
Do you really think the NBA wants to deal with all of those potential issues ON TOP of league image issues and being seen as tolerant and accepting of a racist?
"What does this mean for his hall of fame chances?"
-Donovan McNabb
First and foremost, for what was within his power, I think Silver did just about the best thing he could do and definitely the right thing. I also hope the owners take the final step and force Sterling to sell the Clippers.
Second, the front page of the LA Clippers website at the time of the presser is fantastic:
This is the right decision by the NBA. However, there is a lot more that is going to come out. One of the ugly subtexts has to do with Sterling's own racial background. The New Republic just put out an article entitled, "Donald Sterling is a Blight on Jews' History in Basketball." LINK: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/117573/clippers-owner-donald-sterling-besmirches-jewish-basketball-history
One of the questions being asked is whether Sterling was unfairly given a pass because there was a very high proportion of Jewish owners in the NBA. I don't know the answer, but I'm glad to see Sterling banned, and I think the discussions coming out of this are a good thing.
EDIT: Interestingly, Michigan is mentioned in the above linked article:
The milestone for the introduction of hip-hop culture into basketball was 1991’s Fab Five at the University of Michigan, whose coach, Steve Fisher, was a Jewish man who seemed uncomprehending yet tolerant of his players’ attitudes.
Steve Fisher would be surprised to learn he is Jewish. (He's a devout Christian.) Some sloppy research by the author there.
Actually, I was kind of shocked to read that about Fisher in the article. It didn't fit anything or make sense, but I didn't question the claim. Shame on me for accepting it at face value and not fact checking.
The LA Chapter of the NCAAP was about to give Sterling a 2nd lifetime achievement award. He's given a lot of money to them. I guess he was what you could call a benevolent bigot.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-donald-sterling-naacp-20140429,0,452…
Sterling is a racist asshole, but last time I checked, freedom of speech is still in tact in this country.
Read up again on what freedom of speech actually is.
But the NBA isn't the federal government; they are a private organization with their own rules and bylaws. If they want to bar him for being a racist, they absolutely can. The freedom of speech argument almost never applies to private organizations in contexts where they punish members for saying something they deem to be offensive.
The NBA is not the government. This has nothing to do with free speech rights at all what so ever.
Yet another person who does not under stand the term freedom of speech.
But, this isn't exactly new findings when it comes to Sterling.
There is a "best interest of the league" clause that the NBA can use in this instance. Also, Sterling is responsible to the 29 other owners in the NBA. If they wanted to, they could vote to dissolve the Clippers tomorrow or kick them out of the league.
I don't know the inner workings of the NBA, I was just curious what Silver's authority was.
You guys are like pompous piranha.
I get that the response was a bit heavy, but you didn't ask about Silver's authority as much as you made a blanket statement about civil liberties in public discourse, which really doesn't apply for a private citizen speaking as part of a private organization.
sarcastic remark like "last time i checked..." you better be prepared to have your snideness rebutted hard.
Review your high school civics
I know he needed to do this to Sterling, but I would not want to be an attorney for the NBA when Sterling sues them for forcing him to sell and artifically deflating the value of his franchise on the open market. That is going to be an incredibly ugly series of litigations to determine damages.
Still, guy needed to go. Absolutely nobody was surprised to learn that Sterling said stuff like this, and if you are a massive sports organization with worldwide appeal and a largely minority workforce, you absolutely cannot have this guy as one of your leading members.
The list of sponsors dumping the Clippers after what Sterling said and the best interests of the game clause should make for a great defense.
I believe he paid around $12.5 million, but the point remains.
The point isn't that Sterling wouldn't turn a profit; it would be that he is being hurt from getting a bigger profit because the NBA is forcing him to sell publicly, which any good negotiator would use against him when determining the final price they are willing to pay.
The NBAs lawyers are beyond stoked right now. They have work for the next several years and who knows how many millions in billings. If they have a soul they're also excited about sticking it to a class A asshole.
The cost is high, but as you say, the cost of not doing it would be much worse.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.