More secret tape recordings were uncovered yesterday. This from the office of NBA commissioner Adam Silver . . .
SILVER: So nice to meet you, Mr. Dogg. Do you mind if I call you Snoop? I know you’re outraged by the hateful words of our longest-tenured team owner — we all are — and I wanted to assure you personally that we’re taking action.
First, Donald Sterling will no longer be allowed to sit courtside. If he wants to watch his team, he’ll have to watch from his private club. Or his mansion in Beverly Hills. Or his beach house in Malibu.
Second, we are fining Mr. Sterling. Big time. We’re hitting him where it hurts — $1 million, the biggest fine in league history. For the record, that is more than .0005 percent of his net worth and almost as much as his girlfriend’s jewelry collection.
I hope this shows you and all our loyal fans that there is no place for this kind of racism in our great league. We appreciate your support and hope you’re satisfied with the actions we’ve taken against Mr. Sterling.
So what do you think? Are we good, Mr. Snoop?
SNOOP DOGG: You can’t be (expletive) serious.
Poor, poor Adam Silver. He’s only been on the job for 85 days and already finds himself trapped like a rat in one of Donald Sterling’s tenements. Somewhere David Stern is walking on a beach, in sandals and black socks, smiling like he just escaped from supermax.
Stern’s awkward successor will hold a press conference on the Sterling scandal at 2 p.m. today. You can expect three things from Silver this afternoon: He will make a statement, he will take questions — and he will satisfy no one.
The NBA is embroiled in its biggest PR nightmare in years, and we’ve got some bad news for Silver and Co.: It’s about to get worse. Everyone from Lil Wayne to the Big Aristotle wants the league to take swift and drastic action, but in the words of another NBA embarrassment, Dennis Rodman, guess what, guess what, guess what ...
There is nothing Silver can do. Check that: There is nothing Silver can do that will satisfy outraged fans and media who are demanding the league wrest control of the Clippers away from Sterling. Sorry, Snoop. He can’t do it. He won’t do it. At least not right now.
The commissioner will suspend Sterling. He will fine Sterling. He will not take Sterling’s team away, and Sterling won’t just give up and agree to sell. Sterling is a stubborn, egomaniacal personal-injury-lawyer-turned-slumlord who has spent a lifetime suing and getting sued. You think he’s going to sell the team and go quietly because he’s embarrassing the league? He’s been embarrassing the league for 33 years. I’d say he’s pretty comfortable in that role by now.
Marge Schott was a dumb old woman who was forced out by her limited partners. Sterling is a smart and sinister old man who is reportedly worth close to $2 billion and is the largest landowner in Beverly Hills. In 2003, Sterling was sued for discrimination by a group of tenants. According to the deposition of one of his property supervisors, Sterling did not want to rent to blacks or Hispanics. One of his tenants was an elderly woman named Kandynce Jones who was legally blind and partially paralyzed. After a leak flooded her apartment, Jones asked for compensation for water damage. According to his property supervisor, Sterling refused. “I am not going to do that,” he said. “Just evict the bitch.”
This was reported by ESPN The Magazine five years ago, which means nobody can be surprised by what they heard on those tapes over the weekend. The NBA knew what kind of bigot Sterling was when it hand-delivered Chris Paul to the Clippers, and Paul knew what kind of creep he was working for when he signed his contract.
Doc Rivers has been in the league for 30 years. He played for Sterling for a season and heard all the stories. He still chose to bail on the Celtics and go into business with this snake, so it’s hard to feel sorry for Doc now that he’s been bitten. He wanted the money, the market, the weather and Chris Paul. A vile owner was part of the package, and Doc knew it when he signed up.
If you’re looking for victims, you’re going to have to stick with Kandynce Jones. Everyone else held their noses and gladly got in bed with the bad guy.
It’s too bad Stern will not share the stage with Silver this afternoon, but Stern got out of Dodge three months ago. It is Silver’s headache now, and it’s going to get worse. Unless the commissioner takes a pair of pliers and rips out Sterling’s toenails, it won’t be enough. It’ll never be enough.
The fans and media want blood, but they’re going to get red tape. They want justice, but they’re going to get lawyers. They want Sterling to pay, but sooner or later he will sell the franchise and walk away with almost $1 billion for the Clippers. And that’s the sad truth: Donald Sterling has owned the worst franchise in pro sports for 33 years, and somehow he never seems to lose.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1mUXxl9
0 comments:
Post a Comment