Rochelle Sterling & Donald Sterling 
NEW YORK (AP) - Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been banned for life by the NBA in response to racist comments the league says he made in a recorded conversation.
Commissioner Adam Silver said he will try to force the controversial owner to sell his franchise. Sterling has also been fined $2.5 million, and Silver made no effort to hide his outrage over the comments.
"I fully expect to get the support I need from the other NBA owners I need to remove him," Silver said.
The rebuke, which came three days after the scandal broke, is the harshest penalty ever issued by the league and one of the stiffest punishments ever given to an owner in professional sports. Silver said a league investigation found the NBA's longest-tenured owner was in fact the person on the audiotapes that were released over the weekend.
"We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling's views," Silver said. "They simply have no place in the NBA."
Sterling acknowledged he was the man on the tape, Silver said.
Sterling is immediately barred from attending 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 also cannot participate in any league business going forward. It's unclear how he will respond, and a lawsuit certainly seems possible.
"This league is far bigger than any one owner, any one coach and any one player," Silver said.
The fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti-discrimination and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the NBA and the Players Association, Silver said.
"This has all happened in three days, and so I am hopeful there will be no long-term damage to the league and to the Clippers organization," Silver said. "But as I said earlier, I'm outraged so I certainly understand other people's outrage. This will take some time and appropriate healing will be necessary."
After the announcement, the Clippers' website had a simple message: "We are one," it read.
"We wholeheartedly support and embrace the decision by the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver today. Now the healing process begins," the Clippers added in a statement released to the media.
Sterling's comments were released over the weekend by TMZ and Deadspin, and numerous NBA owners and players have condemned them. Even President Barack Obama weighed in on the crisis, the first of Silver's brief tenure as commissioner.
The league's investigation started Saturday and players immediately began expressing intense displeasure with the situation, even going so far as to ask Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to get involved on behalf of the players' union.
"Commissioner Silver thank you for protecting our beautiful and powerful league!! Great leader!!," Miami Heat star LeBron James wrote on Twitter.
Before Silver took the podium, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted out a photo of the NBA Constitution, saying "It exists for a reason."
The announcement of the sanctions came just hours before the Clippers will play Golden State in Game 5 of a knotted-up Western Conference first-round playoff series.
Several sponsors either terminated or suspended their business dealings with the team on Monday, though individual deals that some of those companies have with Clippers stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will continue and were not affected. Still, it was a clear statement that companies, like just about everyone inside the league, were outraged.
"Commissioner Silver showed great leadership in banning LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life," Magic Johnson, who was referenced on the taped conversation involving Sterling, tweeted shortly after the league's decision was announced.
Johnson's role on the tape stemmed from Sterling's female companion apparently posting a photo of her and the Hall of Fame player on her Instagram account. That photo has since been deleted, but raised Sterling's ire nonetheless.
"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?" Sterling asks the woman on the tape.
Silver said when he first heard the audio, he hoped it had been altered or was fake - but also said that from his 20-year relationship with Sterling, he suspected the voice was his.
The issues raised when the tapes were released over the weekend represent just another chapter in Sterling's long history of being at the center of controversy.
In the past, he's faced extensive federal charges of civil rights violations and racial discrimination in his business dealings, and some of his race-related statements would be described as shocking.
He has also been sued in the past for sexual harassment by former employees, and even the woman who goes by the name "V. Stiviano" - purportedly the female voice on the tapes at the center of this scandal - describes Sterling in court documents as a man "with a big toothy grin brandishing his sexual prowess in the faces of the Paparazzi and caring less what anyone else thought, the least of which, his own wife."
Stiviano is being sued by Rochelle Sterling, who is seeking to reclaim at least $1.8 million in cash and gifts that her husband allegedly provided the woman.
Our in-house expert : Mr . Humble
Illegal move on the NBA they cannot act upon,without legal counsel and representation on the accused person,the speech today by the commish is null and void,until it's heard in a court of law.
They can try banning him for life from owning an NBA Basketball team but they're going to have to enforce that ban in a court of law and I don't see any court in this idiotic country upholding that decision But then again we do live in the land of the silly and little nuances such as freedom of speech don't mean a f****** thing anymore.
I see an old pathetic man that is a racist. He is one suffering from fear of growing old and being sized up with Magic Johnson who just happened to be black, young, handsome and virile. He is biased against skin color and against anyone who is a better man than he. He is the sterling example of "There is no fool like an old fool".
V. Stiviano is a gold digger from the get go and was very successful in gaining "gifts" from Sterling.
Perhaps he is suffering from early senility and why the poor suffering, shamed wife is suing to retrive them back. Either case this makes good fodder in the media.
There is no question that this man is a bigot, and has been for many many years. This time he was caught with his voice on tape, which sealed his coffin. With that being said, I remember when the very dumb, bigoted, anti-semitic, so-called "Reverend" Jesse Jackson said publicly that New York is "Hymietown". What happened to him? Nothing. Reverse discrimination should be looked at the same way that ingrown hatred is. If Sterling was black, we wouldn't have heard the tapes, and the story would never had made it into the media. Yes, he deserves punishment because any kind of hatred is disgusting, but it must go both ways. Acceptance of any type of bigotry is wrong, and overlooking one type of bigotry vs. another is doubly wrong.
Just my humble opinion
No comments:
Post a Comment