The NBA Just Hit Donald Sterling With a Lifetime Ban
The NBA is no longer OK with awful racist Donald Sterling's awful racism.
Commissioner Adam Silver just announced that the Los Angeles Clippers owner has been banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million. Sterling will be banned from all basketball operations.
Further, Silver says he is urging the NBA board of governors to force Sterling to sell the franchise.
Two-and-a-half million is the largest fine allowed by the NBA bylaws but, as Mother Jones' Ian Gordon points out, it is really just pocket change for him.
A $2.5 million fine for Donald Sterling ($1.9 billion net worth) is like a $51 fine for the median American ($38,786).
— Ian Gordon (@id_gordon) April 29, 2014
Silver said that forensic investigators examined the audio recording, first published by TMZ, of Sterling telling his girlfriend not to bring African Americans to Clippers games and found no reason to suspect it had been altered. "The man whose voicehateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling."
This is probably the best Silver could do. They clearly want Sterling, the longest tenured owner in the NBA, out of the league, but it wasn't clear that Silver could in fact make him sell.
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