[NBA Gossip] Donald Sterling Hates the Blacks, Including Magic

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>1. Hearing Adam Silver is dropping the nukes on Donald Sterling today. Everything short of a big mushroom cloud shaped like the NBA logo.</p>&mdash; Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/statuses/461158128273195008">April 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Adidas have pulled their sponsorship and the arena will be without their signage except on the jerseys

 

I didn't know Adam Silver was Jewish also, hmmm...

 

..yes, but he doesn't really claim them

he also said in the tapes that white jews are 100% better than black jews

 

Sorry I meant Sterling, not Adam Silver.

I didn't know about that either.

 

not sure what the 'hmmm…' is for, but it shouldn't be surprising that the commissioner and half of the majority owners would be jewish considering this league was founded by a jewish immigrant (maurice podoloff, for whom the MVP trophy is named after) and has benefitted from jewish investors since.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Don't really care much about press releases from NBA owners, especially ones that knowingly enabled Sterling for years.</p>&mdash; Chris Herrington (@HerringtonNBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/HerringtonNBA/statuses/461167567076196352">April 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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Kareem Abdul-Jabaar brings it

And Simmons knew all this about Sterling and bought season tickets for years, he should just stay quiet.

 

That makes sense then. Didn't know about the history of the league.

 

KAJ nails it.

All this outrage. LOL

WE MUST OUST HIM, ONLY NOW BECAUSE SOMETHING LEAKED OUT!

AND WE'RE GONNA TURN OUR JERSEYS INSIDE OUT TO "PROTEST"!

LOL

Stop the nonsense, stop the faux outrage.

The woman is trash. Sterling is trash. Sterling was trash before, everybody turned an eye. Whatever.

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This is fun to talk about but the real stuff that happened before was that. When people get on their soapbox and wag their finger and say they won't tolerate racism, they won't tolerate what Sterling said, what they're not tolerating about Sterling is the fact what he said is impolite but when Sterling was toying with people's lives, the media, the NBA, the sponsors, all the people who want to get patted on the back for the "good people they are", they didn't say a mumbling word. They can all kiss my behind. Every single one of them. When we see people dying as an economic byproduct of the people like Sterling and now you have a problem because oh my god, he said something that intimated he doesn't respect his players, I'm calling you out as a fraud.

...

A whole lot of these people who want to act like they care about racism don't give a good damn about racism. What they care about right now is a chance to jump on an easy punching bag. When I sit up here and others sit up here tell you about real things happening and try to break it down and explain it to you and make you understand the things you might not be able to recognize on your own, you act like I'm inventing stuff. 8 years after I wrote a column that even my editors admitted they didn't give enough play, 8 years after I wrote that, now everyone wants to come around and hail me as having some amazing foresight for seeing this coming. I didn't see this coming. I saw it happening. Where the hell was everyone else when it was actually happening? They were out here telling me I was crazy about racism but now you know it because Donald Sterling's mistress put out a tape and an 81 year old man said you're embarrassing me by coming to games with black people.

PREACH BOMANI!

 

people dying?

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>What I'm expecting today, Part 1: Silver announces lifetime suspension for DS and that he's starting franchise termination process ASAP.</p>&mdash; Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/statuses/461184937073192960">April 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>What I'm expecting today, Part 2: NBA Players Assoc. demands July free agency for all Clipper players unless NBA sells Clippers ASAP.</p>&mdash; Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/statuses/461185332109537282">April 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
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First time I'm hearing about it from Kareem...

 

Wow they can do that? Just heard the news here in Holland, Europe and I didn't even know he said to his gf: "You are supposed to be a delicate white or latina girl" WTF??!!? He is like a slave owner who used to think blacks were animals, but still had sex with a black woman.

 

Good luck on that. Maybe the lifetime ban, but I don't see any of that other stuff happening.

 

Agreed. LOL at the player's association "demanding."

Too bad the owners can't "demand" that a team be able to dump players and not pay their contracts when they don't like them.

 

Yeah, the same players association that just got bent over in the last CBA negotiations.

 

It may be faux outrage for some, but there's likely a lot of real outrage there too. From the public's perspective, a lot of this wasn't that well known - certainly, specifics weren't. The average person out there doesn't know about Sterling's business dealings or lawsuits from 10 years ago. Half the players in the league somewhere between junior high and college at the time - its doubtful they would have heard about the economic dealings of an NBA owner in a time before social media. Even now, I'd venture to guess (purely speculation) that most of the league's players and coaches didn't know much about any of this.

That's not to say everyone was blind. I'm sure many owners knew, and I'm sure the commish knew. Clippers players probably had some sense of it - though maybe not prior to being there, and if they were treated OK, maybe they thought it was something from the past. But even those that knew might not know how ridiculous Sterling is - they might have thought it was just simply ignorance. Remember, his racism is far more nuanced than "I hate black people". He thinks highly of them as basketball players, is OK with employing and paying them, etc. So it's easy to see why someone who interacts with him in certain ways might not see it or think it's overblown. But then having it laid out so clearly in the voicemails changes that dramatically.

Dismissing it all as faux outrage is silly and makes all sorts of assumptions about the motivation and knowledge of people that you you don't have.

 

To our in house lawyers here, can this be legally done?

 

I'm definitely not a lawyer but I think taking away the franchise (e.g. private property) from Sterling is not legal considering he was also unknowingly recorded and committed no crime. Many have said this before and I don't know why Simmons still thinks it's a possible avenue.

There's a reason why Stern couldn't do crap to Sterling when he was commish because there's no justifiable reason/evidence that Stern could use in forcing Sterling to sell the franchise. As long as Sterling didn't cross any real legal line he couldn't be punished.

That being said, IMO, it doesn't make any sense for the NBA Players' Association to "demand" that the players be made free agents if the franchise isn't sold because what grounds would they have? That their owner has been a longtime racist but, only now, is he even "more" racist? Sterling's reputation is well known and I'm sure a smart guy like Chris Paul knew what he was getting into when he signed that extension (and, thereby, went into bed with) with the Clippers. If he knew about Sterling's behavior prior to signing the extension, it says something about him (and the rest of the players who knew) for putting up with that kind of owner.