Hoops 13-14

[Leferd]

Well it's out in the open. There is just too much sheer outrage and bad publicity for the NBA to do anything other than suspend Sterling and perhaps behind the scenes, force him to sell. Otherwise there is just no way for the Clippers to function competitively after this season.

 

From an operational standpoint, they will lose significant sponsorship money and No player with self respect would want to play for this bigot.

 

Sports moreso than most industries are ahead of the curve when it comes to social justice and race relations.

 

Unless Adam Silver wants to lose his credibility with the players, he will be forced to act.

[Volourn]

"If those comments were made by a team employee or player, you bet there would be suspensions."

 

And, I'd be force to be against it.

 

Also, players have used bigoted langauge before and outside of a silly fine nothing happened. I don't beleive there should be no repercussions. And, the Clippers will be fine in FA stuff.

 

The guy is scum and so is everyone who wants him punished for having unpopular options because they are just as bad as him as they believe in slavery and are anti freedom.

[Leferd]

Ain't a vacuum. The world don't work that way.

 

Free speech is good and all, and so Sterling won't be prosecuted by the government for hate speech, but that doesn't mean there won't be repercussions.

 

The NBA is an image conscious league that cares very much about public perception. Players and other owners have already begun to speak out against Sterling. His statements will have fiscal consequences and the league will be in damage control for here on out. They will act.

[Hurlshort]

I'll be honest, I'm just hoping all these distractions for the Clippers give the Warriors a shot at winning the series.  

 

 

I guess the Clippers players actually discussed boycotting a game?  How crazy would that be?

[ShadySands]

Does the NBA have a "character clause" for owners?

[Hurlshort]

Does the NBA have a "character clause" for owners?

 

I'm sure they can enact some sort of sanctions for conduct unbecoming.

[Volourn]

"Ain't a vacuum. The world don't work that way.

Free speech is good and all, and so Sterling won't be prosecuted by the government for hate speech, but that doesn't mean there won't be repercussions.

The NBA is an image conscious league that cares very much about public perception. Players and other owners have already begun to speak out against Sterling. His statements will have fiscal consequences and the league will be in damage control for here on out. They will act."

 

That's because the NBA are represented by nazis since the vast majority of people are wannabe nazis. It's about power, control, and slavery. Very few people believe in TRUE free speech. they give it lip service. Because theya re evil to the core.

[Hurlshort]

Do you support the players boycotting the games to take a stand against the owner?

[Volourn]

They can do what they want.but that means they get no pay.

[Keyrock]

3rd straight OT game in the OKC/Memphis series.  The western conference playoffs are pretty freakin' awesome, not an easy series in the bunch.  Whoever comes out of the west is going to have to go through a murderer's row to do it.

[Keyrock]

Sergeant Vincent Lamar Carter

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HESAu-pKmyE

[Leferd]

That was an entertaining 4th quarter. Nifty drive by Manu only to be topped by Carter with that buzzer beater.

[Volourn]

That OKC game tonight shows why Durant shouldn't be MVP. he had such a crappy game yet his teams till won in spite of not because of him. MIA would never win if Lebron has such horrible shooting % and overall stats. And, Westbrook was no better. MIA definitely wouldn't win if BOTH their top players did crappy.

[Keyrock]

Everybody has poor shooting nights, LeBron included.  Having Tony Allen draped all over you all night long doesn't help the cause either.  KD still managed to contribute to the game by snagging 13 boards, and also by drawing extra defenders constantly leaving Reggie Jackson open for shots.  Memphis has always made life quite tough for KD, namely because they have Tony Allen, who's one of the very best defenders in the league.  Also, having a coach that never runs any actual plays or any type of offensive system isn't helping the situation.  Scotty Brooks is OKC's #1 problem.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Keyrock

[Volourn]

Making excuses for an overrated player. Typical. Tony Allen is a nobody who would cry if he has to face Lebron.Also, blaming the coach for crappy shooting. LMAO

Edited April 27, 2014 by Volourn

[IndiraLightfoot]

Well, Donald certainly upset the president of the United States and a bunch of legendary celebs, like this knee-jerk reaction from Snoop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQlsSk7sCRM

 

"Sterling’s comments about Johnson follow a long argument about his girlfriend — who says in the recording that she is half-black and half-Mexican — not understanding the cultural differences between white, black, and Hispanic people. At one point, Sterling asks her if she gets “a benefit” from associating with black people, and calls her “stupid” when she asks why the race of the people she associates with matters. Sterling doesn’t answer when she asks if it would have been different had it been Larry Bird in the photo."

 

I can see why people are very angry with Mr Sterling right now.

Edited April 27, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Leferd]

Bottom line is that Sterling has irreparably damaged his reputation with the league, players, agents, sponsors, and fans. Even if it turns out that the tape was doctored, he can't recover from this because his past transgressions with minorities have already come back out from the woodwork.

 

If he doesn't sell (and make a very handsome profit too), the Clipppers will be blacklisted to irrelevancy again.

 

Anyways, I'll be at the Warriors-Clippers game this afternoon, and damn straight I'll add my voice to whatever anti-Sterling chants that's going to come out today.

Edited April 27, 2014 by Leferd

[Volourn]

Snoop Dog proved himself to be racist in that vid. Way to fight racism, Snoop Dog! No better than **** Sterling.

[Leferd]

Warriors finally commit to paying Smallball and end up running the Clipppers out if the court. Warriors did a great Jon of spreading the floor and made DeAndre Jordan irrelelevant. Curry was able to get free of the traps and blitzes and finally shot like Stephen Curry.

 

Meanwhile the Clippers obfuscated all "Clippers" logos and went with their "Los Angeles" unis. Much respect for those guys. I wonder if they will do the same at home...

[Guard Dog]

At first I was just hoping the Grizz would not be embarrassed by OKC. But even in the two losses they've played them tight. Now I'm hoping for the impossible!

[Keyrock]

At first I was just hoping the Grizz would not be embarrassed by OKC. But even in the two losses they've played them tight. Now I'm hoping for the impossible!

Far from impossible, the Grizz have always been a thorn in the Thunder's side and always play them tough.  Plus, they're not really a 7 seed, they fell that low when Marc Gasol was injured, with Marc Gasol healthy they're one of the 6 or 7 best teams in the NBA.  It was really the worst possible draw for OKC to face the Grizz.  This series is going to go down to the wire.

[Volourn]

Yeah, but as much as I rag on them, I still think OKC takes it.

[Leferd]

This year's first round of playoff hoops have been off the wall bonkers. So much stuff going on and off the court. This is great!

 

Another crazy finish, this time Portland and Houston.

[Keyrock]

Here's a really well written piece by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar about the Sterling situation not only condemning Sterling, but also all the chest pounding moral outrage bandwagon jumpers:

 

http://time.com/79590/donald-sterling-kareem-abdul-jabbar-racism/

 

 

Moral outrage is exhausting. And dangerous. The whole country has gotten a severe case of carpal tunnel syndrome from the newest popular sport of Extreme Finger Wagging. Not to mention the neck strain from Olympic tryouts for Morally Superior Head Shaking. All over the latest in a long line of rich white celebrities to come out of the racist closet. (Was it only a couple days ago that Cliven Bundy said blacks would be better off picking cotton as slaves? And only last June Paula Deen admitted using the “N” word?)

 

Yes, I’m angry, too, but not just about the sins of Donald Sterling. I’ve got a list. But let’s start with Sterling. I used to work for him, back in 2000 when I coached for the Clippers for three months. He was congenial, even inviting me to his daughter’s wedding. Nothing happened or was said to indicate he suffered from IPMS (Irritable Plantation Master Syndrome). Since then, a lot has been revealed about Sterling’s business practices:

 

2006: U.S. Dept. of Justice sued Sterling for housing discrimination. Allegedly, he said, “Black tenants smell and attract vermin.”

2009: He reportedly paid $2.73 million in a Justice Dept. suit alleging he discriminated against blacks, Hispanics, and families with children in his rentals. (He also had to pay an additional nearly $5 million in attorneys fees and costs due to his counsel’s “sometimes outrageous conduct.”)

2009: Clippers executive (and one of the greatest NBA players in history) sued for employment discrimination based on age and race.

 

And now the poor guy’s girlfriend (undoubtedly ex-girlfriend now) is on tape cajoling him into revealing his racism. Man, what a winding road she led him down to get all of that out. She was like a sexy nanny playing “pin the fried chicken on the Sambo.” She blindfolded him and spun him around until he was just blathering all sorts of incoherent racist sound bites that had the news media peeing themselves with glee.

 

They caught big game on a slow news day, so they put his head on a pike, dubbed him Lord of the Flies, and danced around him whooping.

 

I don’t blame them. I’m doing some whooping right now. Racists deserve to be paraded around the modern town square of the television screen so that the rest of us who believe in the American ideals of equality can be reminded that racism is still a disease that we haven’t yet licked.

 

What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise. Now there’s all this dramatic and very public rending of clothing about whether they should keep their expensive Clippers season tickets. Really? All this other stuff I listed above has been going on for years and this ridiculous conversation with his girlfriend is what puts you over the edge? That’s the smoking gun?

 

He was discriminating against black and Hispanic families for years, preventing them from getting housing. It was public record. We did nothing. Suddenly he says he doesn’t want his girlfriend posing with Magic Johnson on Instagram and we bring out the torches and rope. Shouldn’t we have all called for his resignation back then?

 

Shouldn’t we be equally angered by the fact that his private, intimate conversation was taped and then leaked to the media? Didn’t we just call to task the NSA for intruding into American citizen’s privacy in such an un-American way? Although the impact is similar to Mitt Romney’s comments that were secretly taped, the difference is that Romney was giving a public speech. The making and release of this tape is so sleazy that just listening to it makes me feel like an accomplice to the crime. We didn’t steal the cake but we’re all gorging ourselves on it.

 

Make no mistake: Donald Sterling is the villain of this story. But he’s just a handmaiden to the bigger evil. In our quest for social justice, we shouldn’t lose sight that racism is the true enemy. He’s just another jerk with more money than brains.

 

So, if we’re all going to be outraged, let’s be outraged that we weren’t more outraged when his racism was first evident. Let’s be outraged that private conversations between people in an intimate relationship are recorded and publicly played. Let’s be outraged that whoever did the betraying will probably get a book deal, a sitcom, trade recipes with Hoda and Kathie Lee, and soon appear on Celebrity Apprentice and Dancing with the Stars.

 

The big question is “What should be done next?” I hope Sterling loses his franchise. I hope whoever made this illegal tape is sent to prison. I hope the Clippers continue to be unconditionally supported by their fans. I hope the Clippers realize that the ramblings of an 80-year-old man jealous of his young girlfriend don’t define who they are as individual players or as a team. They aren’t playing for Sterling—they’re playing for themselves, for the fans, for showing the world that neither basketball, nor our American ideals, are defined by a few pathetic men or women.

 

Let’s use this tawdry incident to remind ourselves of the old saying: “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.” Instead of being content to punish Sterling and go back to sleep, we need to be inspired to vigilantly seek out, expose, and eliminate racism at its first signs.

[Hurlshort]

 

The girl hiding her head in shame is the best part.