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Blake Griffin: "I get no joy in seeing this happen to the Clippers. For one thing, the people I feel the most bad for are Clipper fans. They've been nothing but loyal. I still live in LA, I run into Clipper fans all the time, they're the best. Some of the most loyal fans in all of sports. Find me a franchise where there's been that many downs, and I've been a part of those downs, I'm not putting down the franchise. I unfortunately have caused some downs. I had Donald Sterling as an owner, and he was one of the worst and notoriously cheap. And now you have a guy who's like, 'I'll pay more.'"
So when the NBA penalized the Clippers last month for salary-cap circumvention violations following a yearlong investigation involving the franchise and seven-time All-Star Kawhi Leonard, Griffin couldn’t help but recall playing for Sterling — whom he called “the worst owner in professional sports.” “Among a lot of the more serious problems with Donald, he was notoriously cheap,” Griffin told The Athletic ahead of the Oct. 20 premiere of his new comedy talk show, “The Stepback with Blake Griffin.” “Like, he never wanted to spend money; he cut back every single (way) he could. And now, the Clippers have this owner who is basically, like, ‘I mean, is the salary cap, like, a rule or is it just, like, a suggestion?’ You know, he’s happy to pay over the salary cap. He’s happy to go above and beyond to spend. So, in terms of Clipper fans, they got one end of the spectrum to the other.”
Napear spent the next five years podcasting before returning to radio last August as a daily host on Fox Sports Radio in Sacramento. He had also faced controversy for defending disgraced former LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling and later calling former broadcast partner Doug Christie a “coward” for not defending him after his 2020 firing.
The NBPA isn't going to fight this ruling and Kawhi Leonard is accepting the fine, but the Clippers ostensibly have another "avenue" to pursue: court — and not the basketball one. We'll see if the Clippers decide to fight this in America's judicial system. In doing so, Steve Ballmer would be following in the footsteps of his predecessor. After Silver banned Donald Sterling for life after a racist recording was made public, Sterling sued the league for damages exceeding $1 billion, saying the league's punishments were "draconian.” A federal judge dismissed Sterling's suit in 2016.
Doc Rivers got to the Clippers not long before the end of Donald Sterling's ownership of the team; Sterling made racist comments and wound up getting banned by NBA commissioner Adam Silver. "I underestimated what a great situation I was in, and I took that for granted, like you can just go anywhere and create that," Rivers said. "I messed that one up. But then when I go to the Clippers, the team is pretty damn good. The organization, it was the worst organization in sports with the ownership problem. Within a week there, I remember telling my assistant, 'We've got a lot to do here.'"
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Tony Allen: Y'all was working in a in a real hectic environment during that time. It went viral with the Donald Sterling sh*t. Was that kind of hard to deal with? Matt Barnes: To me it didn't matter, TA, because I faced real racism in my life. In my senior year of high school like this dude was [expletive] with my sister and calling her a [n-word] this and spit on her and everything. She was a soft motherf*cker. I had to whoop this dude. And when I got suspended, this is in probably a couple months before I went to UCLA. I got suspended for a week, like midweek when I'm suspended, the KKK comes and like burns crosses and hangs mannequins in the tree like [n-word] die and swastikas everywhere. So I’ve seen like real hateful sh*t. So to hear like a owner talking about black people this and black people that, like I didn't give a [expletive] about what that old senile [expletive] had to say, but obviously the rest of the world did.
Henry Abbot on Clippers investigation: To me like their decision is we definitely want to keep Steve Ballmer. We don't want to kick him out like Donald Sterling, but we need to punish him enough that we look credible the next time Adam Silver has a difficult question in a press conference like the one you just played. So like what's the minimum viable punishment to get them there? And I would be very surprised if they're not negotiating that right now.
Byron Scott on how he became a Laker after being drafted by the Clippers: What was their hesitation on not signing you? Byron Scott: If you hear some of the stories, Donald Sterling wanted a Laker. He wanted a Laker badly. And I think he had met with Dr. Jerry Buss at some dinner or something and they talked about some things and Norm Nixon's name was mentioned. So Sterling went back to the head guys, Pete Babcock and those guys, and said ‘I want to make this trade’. So basically the Clippers traded my draft rights to the Lakers and Swen Nater for Norm Nixon and Eddie Jordan.
Matt Barnes: I got a 10-day contract with the Clippers. I want to say my first time, my first practice… First of all, the Clippers used to be ran by Donald Sterling, who's a piece of sh*t, let's just be honest. Eddie House: For real. Barnes: And it was such a bad college that there was no locker room, no showers, and you used to have to keep the back doors of the gym open so they didn't break into your cars."
Wachtell Lipton is the same law firm the NBA used to investigate two high-profile cases of misconduct by team owners — both of whom were later forced to sell their teams. In 2014, the law firm investigated former Clippers owner Donald Sterling for accusations of numerous racially insensitive remarks made about NBA legend Magic Johnson, revealed by TMZ. In 2022, the firm investigated former Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver for multiple instances of inappropriate language or behavior after an ESPN report on the matter.
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Q. Did you ever have any run-ins with Donald Sterling and uh anything about him that stood that that stands out that you can still remember? Cuttino Mobley: What was weird to me right and I just let it go is that as soon as we finish playing and we go to the locker room he was coming in there with people like you know you take your clothes off and you’re butt naked. Like it was like art or like the zoo. He was like ‘Look, take at look at this specimen. You see this one? Look how tall that is. He's got dreads…’ You felt like that. Paul George: Like you were at an auction.
And you got any Donald Sterling stories? Darius Miles: Not really. Like, you know, me and Q kind of felt he was weird. So, you know, we kind of kept our distance. You know, at the white party, we'd walk in there for about 15 minutes, and as soon as we shook everybody’s hands and kissed the babies, we were out. You know what I'm saying? So we really didn’t— I think one of the weirdest things that he always used to do was just come in the locker room after the game with guys like half-naked and kind of, um, give you that uncomfortable type feel or look. You know what I'm saying? That’s probably the creepiest thing that he was doing.
Duane Rankin: ESPN's Stephen A Smith just apologized to Suns team owner Mat Ishbia on mentioning his name with Donald Sterling, but said he meant it from a basketball perspective. Sterling received a lifetime ban from NBA for racist remarks. Now he's going in on Ishbia. #Suns
Duane Rankin: Mat Ishbia said doesn't think people take Stephen A. Smith seriously when asked about him saying he's on the verge of becoming the worst owner in the history of basketball. Added that he thinks Smith will apologize for putting him in the same category as Donald Sterling. #Suns pic.x.com/tnablKsJcC