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This Day In Sports…April 29, 2014, 10 years ago today:
With stunning swiftness, new NBA commissioner Adam Silver bans Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the league for life and fines him $2.5 million. The action came just four days after TMZ revealed audio of a conversation in which Sterling can be heard scolding his mistress, V. Stiviano, for bringing blacks to Clippers games and for posting photos of herself with African-Americans, including Lakers legend Magic Johnson, to her Instagram account.
The racist rant stunned the Clippers—who were in the middle of a hotly-contested playoff series against the Golden State Warriors—and all of the NBA. It was upsetting enough that both teams seriously considered walking out on their Game 5 matchup. Throughout the league there were calls for Silver, who had just taken over for retired commissioner David Stern less than three months earlier, to take quick and decisive action. Players were prepared to send a message, but Silver headed them off at the pass and sent one himself.
Sterling was still married to his wife of 59 years, Shelly, who had already sued Stiviano for the return of a $1.8 million home and $800,000 in cash, gifts, a Ferrari and other luxury vehicles Donald Sterling had given her. Shelly won. Sterling also sued Stiviano over the recording of the cell phone audio but ultimately dropped the suit. Sterling also sued the NBA for $1 billion while Shelly was working with the league to sell the team. Finally the Clippers were sold for $2 billion to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who still owns the team today. The Sterlings were separated multiple times and were close to divorce in 2016, but amazingly, they are still married.
Sterling bought the then-San Diego Clippers in 1981 and pledged to spend generously in order to build the team into a contender. Billboards around the city featured Sterling’s smiling mug with the tagline, “My Promise: I will make you proud of the Clippers.” By the following year, Sterling began trying to move the Clippers to L.A., and he finally succeeded in 1984. Yet the franchise remained one of the most moribund in all of sports for most of Sterling’s ownership years.
About five weeks from now, FX Networks will premiere its series “Clipped” exclusively on Hulu, detailing Sterling’s downfall. According to an FX release, “Clipped” will “chart the collision between a dysfunctional basketball organization and even less functional marriage, and the precipitating tape’s impact on an ensemble of characters striving to win against the backdrop of the most cursed team in the league.”
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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