Here's an interesting twist in the sad, and vile sage of Don Sterling. Keven Armstrong, Bill Madden, and Teri Thompson, report Donald Sterling set to fight NBA ban with lawsuit to block sale of Clippers: source.
It is not often that I post based on columns past on articles in the New York Daily Post., This one is backed up by several other sources. I don't see evidence this has been posted already.
LOS ANGELES — Donald Sterling won’t go down without a fight, according to an NBA executive who is close to the disgraced owner of the Clippers, and will sue the league if the other 29 owners vote to force him to sell. ...
“He is not going to sell the team,” the executive said.
Representative from the owners group will have a conference call Thursday, to discuss next steps on removing Sterling.
The process for removing Sterling is detailed in its constitution and bylaws. Commissioner Adam Silver has three days to provide Sterling with the charges, Sterling has five days to respond and the Board of Governors then has to vote within 10 days of Sterling's response.
Sterling could seek an immediate injunction, then file suit raising breach of contract or antitrust claims.
As reported in the analysis below in more detail, such a counter-suit by Sterling would appear to have solid ground as the closest thing in the NBA constitution that would allow the other owner to terminate Sterling's ownership would be a "willful act" which typically includes, "criminal behavior, financial instability or gambling or fixing games." If Sterling was unaware he was being taped, his remarks were not "willful." The anonymous source close to Sterling said, “He’ll sue and it’ll take years to settle.”
The NBA owners' group will meet Thursday to discuss next steps in trying to remove Donald Sterling. Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive expects the owners to vote in unanimous support of Adam Silver's request to try to force Sterling to sell the team.
Lebron James seemed to speak for NBA players when he said:
“With this particular case we’re fighting for, I don’t think it can do anything to hurt our game... We’re fighting to get an owner out of our league who shouldn’t be a part of our league. No matter how long it takes, no matter how much money it costs, we need to get him out of there — and whoever is associated with him doesn’t belong in our league.”
Apparently players had planned to boycott the playoffs had the NBA not taken strong action against Sterling.
Fox News is another outfit I rarely find articles from. Don't go there just know that Lawyer Clay Travis opines that NBA lacks authority to force Donald Sterling to sell the Clippers, wherein he makes a strong argument that the NBA and owners group don't seem to have much of a case to terminate Sterling's ownership based on the NBA constitution.
A close examination of the NBA's bylaws raises serious questions about whether the NBA has the legal authority to strip Donald Sterling's ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers and force a sale of the franchise. Indeed, when you examine all of the relevant bylaws relating to termination of a franchise interest, I don't believe the NBA has the legal authority to take away Sterling's team and force the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise.
Clay posts the entire Article 13 of all causes for for terminating an owners interest and find nothing close to "legally justifying" such a move in this case.
Put simply, when you actually examine the NBA's posted bylaws, I don't believe Adam Silver or the league has the legal authority to take Donald Sterling's team from him. As a highly trained lawyer Silver probably knows this as well -- in fact, I think it's why he looked so nervous at the press conference, because he knew he didn't have the legal authority to support his announced penalties. The failure of most media to even examine the bylaws to determine whether or not Silver has the authority to undertake the actions he's proposed, is a glaring flaw of the reporting surrounding this story. In the end, Silver got his bold headlines praising him for taking a strong stand, but the underlying support in the bylaws for taking Donald Sterling's team just isn't there.
While Sterling may be racist, there's nothing in the termination clause of the NBA bylaws that allows the league to take his team for that reason.
We shall see.
Don Sterling seems to be stubborn, however, when he said on the tape that the owners made the NBA what it is, he touched a nerve with the players who were reported to be ready to boycott the playoffs if Adam Silver had not taken sufficiently strong action.
My expectation is that if Sterling doesn't agree to sell the Clippers straight away they will rise again to focus their collective power against him. I can not imagine the Players, fans, sponsors, other owners, and media waiting several years for Don Sterling to drag this through the courts. My guess would be that is not the way this unfortunate episode will resolve.
Thu May 01, 2014 at 10:19 PM PT: Terre and I had an exchange thank makes a better conclusion to this post. Thanks Terre. Terre was suggesting that a lawyer suggested Sterling gave his permission to make the take so it could be argued in court this was "will," To which I responded.
That's sort of the point of this article. "Future litigation" I don't know if this article is true, and I don't think the players will allow it to come to this.
* [new] It would be a real break in character. Sort of sad though. Imagine reaching 80 and this is how he wants to spend his remaining years.
When one is in these kinds of battle it often consumes your every waking moment as one runs through arguments, and hypothetical responses, and imaginary closing arguments, and imaging audiences of various sort agreeing with you side or the other.
Wouldn't it be more fun to take grandkids fishing, or travel to exotic places.
Or imagine the philanthropy he could do to mitigate the damage to his name.
Heck, if I had billions of dollars and I were 80 I might go to impoverished areas in Africa and set up solar powered water desalinization plants to turn sea water into clean drinkable water, or set up lending banks to help aspiring entrepreneurs launch "appropriate technology" businesses in the third world.
Fund model "sustainable farming" projects. Set up matching fund challenges with other billionaires to buy mosquito netting for every child in malaria afflicted areas of the world.
The number of children per year who die of diarrhea is shameful and astonishing. it was measured in 10 of millions a year, maybe even approaching 100 million I do not remember exactly, but an article I read about 20 years ago said we could prevent about 80% of these deaths with simple chlorine tablets to disinfect drinking water for a couple pennies a day per child.
After setting up trust funds for grandchildren, I'd make sure I died with exactly zero dollars in the bank having given every last cent away.
And, in Don Sterling's case one major recipient of his charity should be scholarships for young people of color.
If he did these things and gave a heart felt apology I think most folks would pray for his soul at his grave and think the man made mistakes but tried to redeem himself in the end.
But, to spend your last years trying to tell the world, the NBA, AAs and the Clipper's players "screw-off" would be a terrible sad way to go.