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| In this photo taken on Friday, Oct. 25, 2013, Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, center, and V. Stiviano, right, watch the Clippers play the Sacramento Kings during the first half of an NBA basketball game, in Los Angeles. The NBA is investigating a report of an audio recording in which a man purported to be Sterling makes racist remarks while speaking to Stiviano. NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in a statement Saturday, April 26, 2014, that the league is in the process of authenticating the validity of the recording posted on TMZ's website. Bass called the comments "disturbing and offensive." |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- Donald Sterling has been known to heckle his own team from the
center-court seat where he has sat for decades, whether with his
now-estranged wife or women young enough to be his granddaughters.
Former
Los Angeles Clippers say the owner would barge into the locker room to
berate players, offer awkward praise or - according to testimony in a
lawsuit filed by his fired general manager - tell guests to check out
his players' "beautiful black bodies."
The
NBA's longest-tenured owner is among the least successful in basketball
history. He has watched the Clippers became a profitable punch line,
compiling the worst record in North American pro sports during his first
quarter-century in charge.
He has fired loyal
coaches, waged court battles with long-serving executives and publicly
seethed when players didn't want to stay with the team.
And that's only what Sterling does when the world can see him.
Opponents
say the racially incendiary remarks attributed to Sterling and leaked
to TMZ last weekend publicly show a side of the 80-year-old real-estate
mogul that has been ignored and rationalized for years.
"It
put a smile on my face that finally he would be unable to deny the
racist allegations against him," said Carl Douglas, a lawyer who
represented former Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor in a lawsuit
against Sterling.
"This is a guy who, as the
owner, sits courtside at the half-court line," Douglas added. "No other
owner sits like that. He has an ego the size of the Grand Canyon."
Sterling
has faced extensive federal charges of civil rights violations and
racial discrimination in business, making shocking race-related
statements in sworn testimony before reaching multimillion-dollar
settlements.
He has also been sued for sexual harassment by former
employees, and the court proceedings detailed an outlandish list of
Sterling's personal proclivities.
Baylor, the
former NBA great who served as the Clippers' GM for 22 years, left the
franchise with rancor and an unsuccessful lawsuit alleging race and age
discrimination. Baylor claimed Sterling has a "plantation mentality"
about the Clippers, envisioning a team of "poor black boys from the
South playing for a white coach."
"When I
heard that voice (on the TMZ recordings), there was a visceral
reaction," said Douglas, who deposed Sterling during Baylor's lawsuit.
"I recognized the venom in that voice."
Sterling's
new embarrassment might lead to his long-term banishment from the NBA.
Several major Clippers sponsors dropped or re-evaluated their
association with the team Monday, including State Farm, CarMax, Kia
Motors America, Virgin America and Red Bull.
But
amid the national outrage over the Clippers owner's apparent comments
last weekend, former NBA star Kevin Johnson asked the question that must
be addressed by Commissioner Adam Silver and the owners who control the
league.
"We wanted (Silver) to give us a full
accounting of the prior accusations of racism made against Mr. Sterling
and why those were never sanctioned by the NBA," said Johnson, who was
asked by Clippers guard Chris Paul to speak for the players' union
membership. "It's our responsibility to find out the history of Mr.
Sterling, and why sanctions did not occur."
Anyone
with even a passing knowledge of Sterling's history of discrimination
charges and outlandish statements wasn't surprised by the latest
revelations.
The son of a produce dealer,
Sterling grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles. Donny
Tokowitz eventually changed his last name, earned a law degree and
began practicing in divorce and personal injury in 1961. He spent his
earnings methodically buying up real estate all across Los Angeles,
becoming famous for almost never selling any property.
With
encouragement from Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Sterling paid just over $12
million in 1981 for the beleaguered San Diego Clippers, who had moved
out from Buffalo three years earlier.
Sterling
was eccentric from the start, plastering his face on billboards and
publicly hoping for a last-place finish so he could draft Ralph Sampson.
During the 1980s, players claimed they would receive their paychecks on
Fridays after the banks closed, likely to prevent them from bouncing.
Sterling
abruptly moved his franchise to Los Angeles in 1984, receiving a $25
million fine from the NBA before countersuing and getting the penalty
sharply reduced. He put the team in the decrepit Los Angeles Sports
Arena and turned a tidy profit thanks to a sweetheart lease deal.
Despite
their location in a glamorous major media market, the Clippers were a
destination of last resort for most free agents and an unfortunate
detour in their players' careers. When Ron Harper compared his time with
the Clippers to a jail sentence in 1994, Sterling suspended him for a
game without pay.
Along the way, Sterling and
his insurance company paid $2.75 million to settle a federal housing
discrimination lawsuit after court proceedings packed with scandalous
testimony about Sterling's opinions of minority tenants in his
properties. More salacious tales came out of Baylor's wrongful
termination lawsuit, which was ultimately unsuccessful.
Sterling's
alleged recorded comments included a personal attack on Magic Johnson,
which came as a shock to the Dodgers owner and retired Lakers superstar.
"I
had a friendship with him, so for him to then make these alleged
comments about myself ... there's no place in our society for it,"
Johnson said of ABC's pregame show Sunday.
After
three decades of nearly unrelenting misery and controversy, the
strangest thing happened a few years ago: The Clippers got good.
Led
by Paul and high-flying forward Blake Griffin, Los Angeles has won two
straight Pacific Division titles while winning 113 games over the last
two regular seasons, easily the two best campaigns in franchise history.
Until
now, most of the NBA's displeasure had been rooted in Sterling's
performance as an owner, not any perceived racist beliefs or actions.
When the Clippers became a contender - largely thanks to the acquisition
of Paul in a trade overtly orchestrated by Stern - the league's
concerns about Sterling's stewardship of the team started to subside.
A
large segment of basketball-loving Los Angeles had always embraced the
Clippers out of sheer contrarianism, not wanting to jump on the Lakers
bandwagon. When the Clippers' fortunes changed, they became the
fashionable favorite team for Hollywood's hipsters, transplants and
basketball purists who wanted to be part of history on the ground floor -
never mind the reputation of the owner.
And
now that the Clippers are worth watching, Sterling might never be
allowed to watch them from courtside again. Fan protests and boycotts
are expected at Staples Center on Tuesday night when the Clippers resume
their playoff series against the Golden State Warriors.
Douglas,
who had Clippers season tickets for 10 years, has called for an
extensive fan boycott. He hopes a public outcry will force the NBA's
other 29 ownership groups to leverage Sterling out of the league.
"They
have to be so embarrassed by the spectacle of his ownership that they
band together and influence him into selling the team," Douglas said. "I
am hopeful that some corporation will buy the team, probably at a
premium, and once and for all rid Los Angeles of this man."
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