I would like to hear the board's opinion on the Sterling situation

Minus Sterling...the Clippers become a premiere destination. Especially if Geffen and Oprah are your owners. This could be bad for mid market teams in the future. He deserves to go but how are we gonna rail against the NSA for recording our phone convos and completely give the sluts actions a pass? He was recorded illegally.

 

In my opinion, the decision to punish or not and if punishable, the extent is based or relative to the outrage of your constituents. Some have pointed out the Shaq and Rodman comments but those incidents did not solicit a lot of anger where players threatened to boycott. For this incident, the players union made it clear that they will boycott and in addition, the sponsors also pulled their advertisement money. The sentiments were loud and clear so Silver had to do something that would fix the NBA's bottom line.

In comparison, Sarah Palin just recently explained water boarding as a christian baptism ritual. The reason why there is no backlash because it does not affect the bottom line of the NRA or conservative narrative. In contrast, the audience applauded this. They might have had some complaints from the other members but not enough for it to affect their brand. If she mentioned something that is against the grain of the NRA ideology, she would not just be banned from the club, she will have a number of members hunting her down.

 

Supposedly Oprah wants to team up with David Geffin and Larry Ellison to buy the Clippers.
Thats crazy.

 

Hopefully that wont happen, Oprah hates white people as much as Sterling hates black people. There is no more room for hate in this league

I like how all of a sudden, celebrities want to buy this team. I wonder if they would have shown interest if Sterling would have wanted to sale it a week ago???

 

I think Doc Rivers realized that there's only one way to make their team play harder - to make them angry. And Clippers are gonna win it all this season, sadly.

 

They won't beat Memphis. LOL

 

Oh the nonsense ppl spew on messageboards. Never gets old

 

Yes, all laws are made from "opinions" or collective opinions, if you want.

But yes, it is "absolute" in the nation that adopts the law.

If you go over the speed limit and the police gives you a ticket. Do you tell the judge, "Hey, the speed limit is not absolute. It's just an opinion"? Good luck.

 

Someone pointed out on the Radio or TV yesterday
Players get called out and punished for their private lives all the time
not Cuban and the owners are scared to held to the same standard???

Hypocritical

Rocket River

 

I don't think some of you understand the 1st Amendment. It forbids the state from incarcerating you. You can still get fired or whatever.

Go to work tomorrow and start screaming n*****r and f*g at everyone. You will notice that you will get fired but not JAILED by the police. Afterwards, you can try to sue your company for "violating' your 1st Amendment Rights. It will not work. Do you see how being jailed for being an a-hole is different than getting fired for being an a-hole?

The NBA is a private organization and NOT an arm of the government. It has rules an bylaws in place that allow it to ban Sterling. They are NOT throwing him in jail. See the difference?

 

There were practical considerations as well.

A player boycott was a very real possibilty - especially if Silver came out and said they were just collecting facts, etc., and not going to do anything. A boycott would have been disastrous since pretty everyone would have sympathized with the players.

The league is over 75 percent black. An owner was noted as saying he doesn't want black people at his games or his "friends" seen in public with them. I totally sympathize with the players in this case. And a lifetime ban was appropriate. Sterling is an a-hole and everyone has known this for decades.

 

If a CEO of a company was caught making these remarks, guess what? Even if the CEO was also tape-recorded illegally, he would be forced to resign. The Mozilla CEO never even made any racist or anti-gay remarks but had to resign for donating to an anti-gay organization.

U.S. society has become much more aware and reactive to issues of discrimination (the right wing will call it "liberal", "hyper-sensitive", "too PC"), so now more than ever is a terrible time to ever come out -- intentionally or not, as a bigot.

 

I didn't hear exactly the comments you heard, RR, but I guess I'd say the difference is that when the players get criticized (and sometimes they really don't), it's usually due to something involving criminal charges. DUI, battery, etc, etc.

I can't remember a case where a player got criticized (and fined, etc) over a recorded private phone call.

Please nobody lump me in with "defending Sterling". I actually like what the NBA did. I think it would make a better and more consistent statement if they extended a new policy to all NBA employees (not for a lifetime ban or $2.5M fines, clearly, but at least for smaller fines responding to any kind of hate speech, including racial epithets on the court or to a fan or whatever.)

As it is, the "bold" action of the NBA looks like exactly one thing: covering their own ass and trying to stem the PR bleeding in this one viral news story.

 

I believe someone recorded Josh Howard of the Mavs on a cell phone some years ago and he took alot of flak for it.

 

I agree with MadMax, langal (and any others I missed) about the 1st amendment. Maybe grade schools should put a little more focus on distinguishing between situations where that amendment applies and those where it doesn't apply.

I'm almost positive they knew. The NAACP's favorite color is green.

 

Players get punished by the leagues . . even when criminal charges are never brought or dropped

Everyone looking for Ray Rice's punishment
and ole girl probably won't press charges
but
people will be pissed if he don't

Rocket River

 

Thought police strike again.