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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Tuesday, April 29th, 2014

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”.

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One Comment

  1. I think that in this case, jus­tice was served.

    # by Mike Barer :: April 29th, 2014 at 11:20 PM
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