Clippers owner Donald Sterling banned “for life” from the NBA, commissioner announces

Good­bye and good rid­dance, Don­ald Ster­ling:

NBA Com­mis­sion­er Adam Sil­ver has banned Don­ald Ster­ling for life from any asso­ci­a­tion with the Clip­pers or the NBA, it was announced today at a press con­fer­ence in Manhattan.

Com­mis­sion­er Sil­ver has also fined Mr. Ster­ling $2.5 mil­lion, the max­i­mum amount allowed under the NBA Constitution.

The fine mon­ey will be donat­ed to orga­ni­za­tions ded­i­cat­ed to anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion and tol­er­ance efforts that will be joint­ly select­ed by the NBA and the Play­ers Association.

As part of the life­time ban, Mr. Ster­ling may not attend any NBA games or prac­tices, be present at any Clip­pers office or facil­i­ty, or par­tic­i­pate in any busi­ness or play­er per­son­nel deci­sions involv­ing the team. He will also be barred from attend­ing NBA Board of Gov­er­nors meet­ings and par­tic­i­pat­ing in any oth­er league activity.

Accord­ing to Sil­ver, Ster­ling admit­ted that it is his voice that can be heard on the tape post­ed sev­er­al days ago by the web­sites TMZ and Dead­spin. So we know the tape’s not a fake. It’s no longer just an alleged record­ing of Sterling.

The NBA has nev­er tak­en an action like this against one if its own­ers before. But the pun­ish­ment imposed by Com­mis­sion­er Adam Sil­ver is appro­pri­ate. Ster­ling need­ed to be held account­able for his racist, big­ot­ed, and offen­sive views. He need­ed to be shown the door. And that’s exact­ly what the league has done.

Sil­ver does not have the author­i­ty to trans­fer own­er­ship of the Clip­pers from Ster­ling to anoth­er indi­vid­ual or group.However, the NBA Board of Gov­er­nors can expel an own­er and force a sale. Sil­ver says he’ll be ask­ing the board (which con­sists of the NBA’s team own­ers) to do just that.

Giv­en that the league has just declared him per­sona non gra­ta and barred him from attend­ing any games or even step­ping foot inside the offices inside the Sta­ples Cen­ter, Ster­ling has no rea­son to resist a sale except out of spite.

The Clip­pers are prob­a­bly worth over a bil­lion dol­lars, so in all like­li­hood, Ster­ling will unfor­tu­nate­ly be pock­et­ing a lot of mon­ey when the team is sold to new own­er­ship. But at least he’ll nev­er sit court­side at anoth­er NBA game.

Sil­ver’s deci­sion has been receiv­ing near-uni­ver­sal praise so far. Out­spo­ken Dal­las Mav­er­icks own­er Mark Cuban tweet­ed that he agrees “100% with Com­mis­sion­er Sil­vers find­ings and the actions tak­en against Don­ald Ster­ling”. Mia­mi Heat star LeBron James tweet­ed, “Com­mis­sion­er Sil­ver thank you for pro­tect­ing our beau­ti­ful and pow­er­ful league!! Great leader!! #Big­gerThanBas­ket­ball #Strive­For­Great­ness”.