I originally planned to write a Donald Sterling as malaka of the week post today. But since the new NBA Sheriff in town has banned him for life and is urging the owners to force him to sell, I decided to praise the new Commish instead. David Stern tolerated Sterling’s bigotry, slum lordism, and overall creepiness for 30 years so I’m pleased that Silver went nuclear.
Is justice completely satisfied in this case? Of course not. In a just world, Sterling would not profit on the sale of his team but this is more than I expected so I’m a relatively happy camper. The fine imposed on Sterling is a small hit by billionaire standards, but the public humiliation inflicted on him is priceless.
I’m pretty sure that the Commish wouldn’t have gone nuclear if he didn’t have the votes of 3/4 of NBA owners to force the sale. Once Silver told the presser that Sterling had admitted that the voice on the tape was his and had not apologized, it was over. Who wants to endorse that shit? Not even Mavericky Shark Mark Cuban who has gone from skepticism to supporting Silver. Racism is bad for business, y’all.
Now that Adam Silver has dealt with *his* racist owner, the pressure on Roger Goodell to do likewise with Dan Snyder of OAF fame is likely to increase; at least I hope so. For lagniappe, here’s the effigy of Goodell that I have in my living room from the 2013 Krewe du Vieux parade:
Now that Sterling has been banned for life and the Clippers players showed their disgust with him by doing the inside out jersey thing, it’s time to get back to basketball. The protest, of course, gave me an earworm:
I loved Adam Silver’s response. I haven’t seen a leader of a large organization answer questions directly and concisely with no BS in a long, long time.
Now, now, let us not be punitive. I think Mr. Sterling should sell his team for the exact price he purchased it, adjusted for inflation. But not that lavish Social Security inflation rate, but the chained-CPI inflation rate that the riches think is eminently fair for people surviving on Social Security.
I think Simpson-Bowles would be good with this, right?
Long history of racism from Sterling. Recorded segment has many, many things to find offense at – including racism and sexism. All this time he is getting multiple tax advantages and outright incentives for owning the team (even if not directly, the NBA owners act as a collective in that they have a profit sharing scheme between themselves).
At worse, this billionaire-plus is fined 2.5 million (admittedly, the cap of what they could fine him). He bought the team for 12 million. Smaller teams have sold for 1/2 a billion and many predict Sterling could easily get a billion for the team.
Glad to see Silver take action. Admit that he was limited on what he could or couldn’t do. But don’t really see that Sterling was punished.