Don Sterling banned for life from the NBA

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His comments were reprehensible, but was a life time ban justified?

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/...-angeles-clippers-owner-receives-life-ban-nba

If anyone wants to know what exactly was said, here's an embedded YT video with the audio recording:



A lot of players and such in the NBA think it fitting. There is the odd viewpoint that a life time ban goes too far, like this one from a Black radio broadcaster no less:

http://www.tmz.com/2014/04/30/larry-elder-donald-sterling-ban-unfair/

What do you think?

 

Of course it was justified. He's a racist and a bigot and a misogynist and every other similar word you can think of. He really is a despicable person.

And, as far as this is concerned, he did real damage to the NBA "brand" with those comments (note that the claimed first amendment rights are garbage as this is not government action).

Thus, the CEO of the NBA, i.e., Adam Silver the Commissioner, had every right to do what he did. Plus, under the league constitution, the owners have the right to force a sale of the Clippers with a 75% vote and they are going to be 29-0 on this.

Legally, Sterling does not have a leg to stand on.

 

Just to be clear, I personally think a life time ban was justified too. But I'm presenting more than one viewpoint to encourage debate about the extent of the penalty.

 

Blades - you're missing a very important aspect of this.

Put simply, there is nothing sacred about private words and thoughts. As an American citizen, sure, Don Sterling is entitled to be a racist bigot and not worry about the government coming down on him, taking his stuff, beating him up, putting him in prison, or some combo of those things.

Guess what? He's still safe from that.

However, as an owner of an NBA franchise, Don Sterling is no way protected from the fallout of his statements. This happened solely because there is a significant negative impact on the NBA as a whole. The other owners of the clubs (i.e., the rest of his little fraternity) suddenly felt the sting of the backlash and they didn't like it one bit. Some of them honestly felt that he was a bigoted dinosaur that needed to go. Others probably share his views but are a lot smarter about keeping their mouths shut.

However, his private fraternity of owners was completely able to, in effect, kick him out of the frat house. It's private action. You have the right to have and express virtually any opinion you want. You don't have the right to be safe from the consequences of expressing that opinion. This is the 21st century. Everyone has a phone that can do lots of things including recording conversations. One report I read indicated he knew he was being recorded. His statements had the potential to cause really significant harm to his frat brothers and they rightfully kicked him out.

As a further aside, we've known he's a racist bigot for years out here. It's just that David Stern didn't really want the fight to get rid of him and, in the past, his racist statements didn't have the ability to harm the rest of the frat. Now they do and now he must go.

 

Amen.

 

Justified or not, IMO the case just highlights the idiocy of the "masses".

The NBA knew what kind of man Sterling was and didn't care as long as he adequately met his obligations as an owner. If they really cared about his character and didn't want to associate with him any longer because of it, they would have voted him out a long time ago. Sorry Sterling old chap, but we won't be inviting you to tea and crumpets any longer.

All they cared about was the public outcry and how they could get it to go away without it clinging to anyone but Sterling.

Some PR guru told them that to get out from under this effectively would take some action on their part, and more than mere condemnation; that they'd come out smelling like roses if they punished Sterling. That the public is easily manipulated into forgetting that the NBA didn't care what kind of man Sterling was if they punish him now. And it looks like the PR guru was right; hard to say if mere condemnation would have been enough to satisfy the "masses" though.

To me that's the sad commentary here: First, that people were upset enough over his words that rather than just pointing out what a bad guy Sterling is, their anger threatened to spill over into the NBA if the NBA didn't do anything about it presumably because if they didn't do anything about it, that meant that they didn't care. Second, that just because the NBA did something about this incident makes the people think the NBA really cared about Sterling's racism. I mean really, if you're upset at the NBA because they allow someone like Sterling into their ranks how does punishing him now change that? His racism wasn't unknown until this incident.

 

BTA - I do not disagree in the slightest. You live here too and know what kind of an a-hole Sterling has been for decades. It's just that it never really attached to anyone else in the NBA worth considering.

As I mentioned in one of my posts above, I suspect that there are other owners that share his viewpoint, I just think they are smarter in keeping their mouths shut. I'm not considering this from a particularly moral standpoint, just from a practical one.

Morally, I think that most of the franchise owners are douches because, let's face it, to amass the kind of money you need to have to afford one of these teams, you pretty much need to be a right bastard, unless you inherited the money, in which case you folks were probably right bastards too.

Blades - as far as public opinion, etc., the herd mentality is nothing new at all. Look at all the nonsense surrounding Bill Clinton's impeachment. People taking advantage of media and swaying opinions goes back centuries -- look at the yellow journalism that was going on with John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as well. It's just a lot faster now because of our technology.

 

Well, Jason Collins might disagree with you there Snook.

I am going to return to the topic and my initial and continuous point -- this is not government action, it is private action. This guy did something that was going to seriously impact the other owners of the NBA. They had and have every right to act as they are doing.

Snook, you're an accountant. I'm not sure if you are a solo or part of a firm, but let's pretend you are one of 10 partners in your accounting firm. Let's further say that even though you and your partners are a mix of Jews and Christians, all of your employees are Christian and the vast majority of your clients are Christian (and let's make sure that none of your clients are government entities so we don't worry about that).

One of your Jewish partners is at home and, in the confines of his home, but in front of some non family members, talks about how Christians are just idiots and how can they possibly believe that some guy was the actual son of God? He goes on to say that while he certainly employs Christians and associates with them professionally, it would be much better if the non family members would be so kind as to not bring so many of them to the parties he has.

One of the non-family members talks about this to someone else and it gets out. As a result, the employees of your accounting firm decide that they are going to really consider quitting en masse or, at the least, refusing to work until the matter is satisfactorily addressed. Plus, the clients of the firm also find out and start moving their business elsewhere.

Your partnership agreement allows you to get rid of a partner who acts to the material detriment of the firm. Are you saying that you and your partners would take any more time to decide to get rid of the partner than the NBA took to level the boom on Sterling?

Really?

 

I can, however, see Snook's point to a degree.

Let's take an example that's similar and yet dissimilar at the same time, Paula Deen.

Given her age, and hearing her accent, I wasn't exactly falling off the chair shocked when she admitted having used the N-word in the past. Should we really be surprised? And she did emphasize that it was in the past and that she doesn't use it any more. She was just being well ... honest ... as far as I'm concerned.

And, imho, the backlash against her was far out of proportion to what was actually merited. I mean, she was admitting that she had in the distant past.

Sterling is a different story though. Still having that kind of attitude when he's by now had every opportunity to learn better. "I don't mind if they play on my basketball team (stay out in their shacks in the cotton fields) as long as they don't soil my mansion (my plantation household) along the way."

 

If the company's best client was a "fat chick" and refused to do business with the company because of that comment, sure, that employee would get fired. I don't see why not.