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LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling linked to racist comments.


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An audio recording purportedly of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist remarks to his girlfriend is being investigated by the NBA.

 

In the recording, the man believed to be Sterling questions his girlfriend, V. Stiviano, about her association with minorities. TMZ reports that Stiviano, who is black and Mexican, posted a picture of her with Magic Johnson on Instagram, a photo that has since been removed.

 

"It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?" the man believed to be Sterling says. He continues, "You can sleep with [black people]. You can bring them in, you can do whatever you want. The little I ask you is not to promote it on that ... and not to bring them to my games."

 

NBA spokesman Mike Bass issued the following statement: "We are in the process of conducting a full investigation into the audio recording obtained by TMZ. The remarks heard on the recording are disturbing and offensive, but at this time we have no further information."

 

The Clippers have opened their own investigation, team president Andy Roeser said in a statement.

 

"We have heard the tape on TMZ. We do not know if it is legitimate or it has been altered," he said. "We do know that the woman on the tape -- who we believe released it to TMZ -- is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Sterling family alleging that she embezzled more than $1.8 million, who told Mr. Sterling that she would 'get even.'

 

"Mr. Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of who he is, what he believes and how he has lived his life. He feels terrible that such sentiments are being attributed to him and apologizes to anyone who might have been hurt by them.

 

"He is also upset and apologizes for sentiments attributed to him about Earvin Johnson. He has long considered Magic a friend and has only the utmost respect and admiration for him -- both in terms of who he is and what he has achieved. We are investigating this matter."

Link.

 

ESPN has a whole page dedicated to the scandal, which can be found here. You've had many people voice out, from Snoop Dogg to President Obama (from Malaysia) to LeBron James to Michael Jordan. Several of the Clippers' sponsors suspended or cancelled ties with the team. Earlier this morning, ESPN2's First Take spent its entire program today talking about the impact of Sterling's comments (one of the best debates in the show's eleven-year history).

 

If you want to listen to the tape, you can here:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhT6d5fMhzI

 

And you can listen to the new recording here.

 

Yesterday, almost every NBA player protested Sterling's comments by wearing black socks (sometimes black sweatbands). Prior to the Clippers-Warriors game, every player took off the practice gear and dumped it on center court in protest and then took shots with their shirts inside out.

 


 

To those who've had watched the NBA for a long time and know the ins and outs of the NBA, this doesn't come as a surprise. He has a history of sexism and racism to not only his players and people in the front office, but also tenants from the buildings he owns.

  1. During a time where general managers earned at least two million dollars a year, Elgin Baylor (who worked with Sterling or twenty-two years) only earned $250,000. After he was fired, he sued Sterling for age and racial discrimination.
  2. Several times, Sterling refused to fix apartments/suites of Hispanic or black tenants with the drive of chasing them out. Other times, he refused to allow black or Hispanic families to live in his apartments so he can give the apartments away to other ethnicities/races who were "more suited to his tastes." He also allegedly claimed that Korean-Americans will accept whatever housing conditions offered to him.
  3. In 2006, he was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice for housing discrimination, a lawsuit that was settled for over $2.7 million three years later.
  4. Several coaches sued Sterling because Sterling refused to pay them.

But for a ton of people (especially those who've paid attention to the Clippers for the first time), this is the first time Donald Sterling's very dark side of himself is exposed. These are just some examples presented above, and it's been rumored that he's done worse. And even more saddening is the fact that the NBA owners (and former Commissioner David Stern) knew about this and did nothing. Why?

  1. For a long time, the Clippers were historically inept. When he acquired the then San Diego Clippers in 1981, the team soon one of the worst. During his tenure, they hold the worst winning percentage of all the teams in the four major sports. Because the Clippers were so bad, they were unimportant, so Sterling was all but ignored.
  2. Sterling always advertised his philanthropy. In fact, the NAACP awarded him a lifetime achievement award!
  3. Prior to buying the Clippers, Sterling self-made his billion-dollar empire through real estate and career as a lawyer. So whenever there was a lawsuit, it was settled out of court away from the headlines.
  4. Ironically, Sterling's past has never been officially caught. He's been sued for his practices and language affecting others' lives, but his voice was never officially recorded. The audio recording was the first time we ever heard of him explicitly stating his racist garbage.
  5. For the first time in Sterling's long career as owner, the Clippers are consistently winning. People are coming to the games, and the teams are constantly breaking records. The team is exciting, and the team is likeable. This is their third straight season in the playoffs. They won back-to-back division championships (their first division titles ever). Last year, they won fifty games for the first time, winning fifty-six, eclipsing that with fifty-seven this season. Because the Clippers are a marquee team, there's much more scrutiny surrounding the Clippers on and off the court, so Sterling is being publicly shamed for the first time.

This whole scandal is absolutely sad for a multitude of reasons.

  1. Eighty percent of all NBA athletes today are African-American. This is a league that actively promotes and advertises tolerance and growth of support for all walks of life. It's one thing for a player to spew garbage (even though it's just as awful). It's another for an owner to say such rhetoric.
  2. Sterling should've been investigated by the NBA a long time ago. This isn't isolated. It's a reinforcement of a pattern dating back to before David Stern became the commissioner. When he was hit with a wave of lawsuits, including one by the government, Stern sat back and did nothing. Four-and-a-half years ago, Jemele Hill posted an editorial criticizing Stern's lack of involvement. Stern is widely regarded as one of the NBA's best commissioners, but this could ruin his legacy because it's re-exposed.
  3. For once, this is a rather exciting NBA playoffs. Unlike years past, the point differentials are very even, and you can see at least three lower-seeds upsetting the upper seeds. (i.e., Memphis/OKC already played through three straight overtime games). There's potential danger of both #1 seeds (Indiana and San Antonio) losing to the #8 seed (Atlanta and Dallas, respectively).
  4. Once again, the Clippers are winning, and they're a favorite to reach the Western Conference Finals this year. You can tell how much of a distraction the scandal is just by how poorly they played yesterday in Oakland. It's just as devastating for the Clipper fans; the Staples Center sold out 137 straight Clipper games, and who knows how many will attend tomorrow. Who knows how this will affect the players and coach Doc Rivers going forward.
  5. This is a very huge dilemma for the NBA; they can't really force Sterling to sell the team because it's worth at least $600 million. (So if it gets sold, he could earn at least $1 billion, which wouldn't be such a bad turnaround in Sterling's eighty-year-old eyes.) The NBA's bylaws may be much more different than the NHL (Commissioner Bettman stripped former owner Jerry Moyes for attempting to transfer ownership to Jim Balsille with the intent of relocating the Coyotes to Hamilton, Ontario) or MLB (banning late Yankees owner George Steinbrenner for life for trying to ruin Dave Winfield's reputation).

    Also, Sterling has a history of countersuing, once suing the NBA for $50 million for rejecting the relocation of the Clippers from San Diego to Los Angeles (this was back in the early 1980s); and he's a very good lawyer. If Commissioner Silver's going to act, he's going to have to be careful, but the actions must be bold. The NBA cannot tolerate Sterling's pattern of racism and sexism. They must act swiftly and strongly within the collective-bargained bylaws. Much stronger than MLB's two suspensions to late Reds owner Marge Schott for her racist language (once for one year in 1993 for attacking blacks and Jews, another for two-plus years from 1996 to 1998 for supporting Hitler — the latter forcing Schott to sell the team in 1999).

    It's just downright embarrassing and disgusting that the NBA never acted sooner.

What are your thoughts on the scandal?

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Er... wrong forum?

 

Shouldn't this be in Chit Chat, not Sonic Discussion?

 

EDIT: And now this makes no sense out of context.

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I love the Clippers, there one of my favorite teams, (only behind the Blazers) and I'm not going to point my hate towards the team. I actually feel bad for Blake Griffin and his team. Not only for the loss yesterday, but for the inevitable hate and riots towards them that they will get despite not deserving it. People are gonna find the quickest way to show their anger. (I actually know a few people who are already taking it out on the them)

 

But you know what? They still need to play. They can't let this destroy the team. They've been doing so well this season, and they have a good chance of making it to the finals.(Still hoping Blazers make it though!) They aren't trying to win this for the owner of the Clippers. And while it definitely is a issue that will try them, they need to keep playing hard, and try to win this for the team and the fans.

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Pretty much how I feel about this whole thing.

 

 
Black People Are Cowards
 
In light of the recent decision by a professional basketball team, comprised of mostly black players, to respond to their boss basically saying “I hate niggers” by turning their shirts inside out the next day at work, I have come to the decision that I agree wholeheartedly with the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, and I too do not want black people invited to my events.
 
It’s not for the same reasons that the Clippers’ owner doesn’t want black people invited to his events. To be honest I don’t really know what his reasons are. Perhaps he recently tuned in to an FM “hip hop” station and after hearing song after drug, sex, and violence-laden song decided that it might be a good idea to keep some distance. Perhaps his media conditioning spans beyond music, encompassing the gamut of stereotype-enforcing media, (media championed and praised by blacks, where the most rich and famous coons are praised and idolized as examples of black “success”). Maybe he’s been hanging out with George Zimmerman, and they’ve been watching Love & Hip Hop, and Basketball Wives, and the Tyler Perry collection, and Katt Williams and Kevin Hart performances (anybody catch that Kevin Hart movie with the ex-rapper who used to have a song standing up against police brutality playing a police officer? Where Hart delivers the line that Zimmerman had no doubt heard a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, shifting his psyche to the point where he could be authentically terrified of someone just because they were black . . . “you’re white. You don’t fight.”)
 
No, I’m lucky enough to spend enough time with black people to recognize that we’re not the base form of human life that we continue to support ourselves being portrayed as (though admittedly, it definitely rubs off on us. A lot. So much so that it’s very puzzling to comprehend how we could blame anyone who doesn’t get to spend much time with us for fostering a wildly skewed perception. What can people know but what they see?). No, I don’t want black people to stay away from my events because I believe them to be uncivilized, or ignorant, or anything like that.
 
I don’t want black people at my events anymore, because black people are cowards.
 
In all the history I’ve ever studied, in all the fiction I’ve ever read, I am hard pressed to find an example of cowardice to rival the modern day black American, and nobody wants to be surrounded by cowards right?
 
What if lions break out of the zoo and start trying to eat everyone? What if aliens attack? What if the police department decides that they want to grab their batons and blow off some steam? Are cowards really the type of people that you want to be surrounded by?
 
Not me.
 
Black People Are Cowards
That’s why I don’t want black people at my events anymore. Athletes that could refuse to perform until a killer is arrested, even until a killer is convicted, who instead opt for taking a picture where they all have their hoods on and then carrying on with business as usual: I don’t want to be surrounded be these clowns. If you’re black, or white, and you go back to work after finding out that your boss is grossed out at the idea of being in the same vicinity with any black person except for the cutie he’s sugar daddy to, I’m pretty sure you’re not who I want in my corner during crunch time. Real crunch time. Life crunch time.
 
The most common excuse I’ve heard for today’s cowardice is “they need to feed their families,” which of course is a euphemism for “for the money.” You know, the blacks that sold other blacks into slavery, there’s a good chance they used some of that money to feed their families too. So, that makes them cool with all of y’all? Here’s a question, is there anything that we won’t do for money? Is getting paid an excuse for everything? It’s an excuse for looking the other way when innocent people are killed. It’s an excuse for supporting racism by trying to win a championship for an openly racist owner. With regard to hip hop and media it’s an excuse for purposefully, and most often deceitfully, representing yourself and your culture as pretty much scum who can only be validated by money. Thanks in large part to the exceptional (it’s sad just how exceptional) bravery of Michelle Alexander, (author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness) we live in a society where each day more and more people realize the obvious truth that the goals of the criminal justice system have way more to do with black enslavement than rehabilitation or keeping people safe. Facing the reality of modern slavery, we continue to allow ourselves to be enslaved day after day. (Granted, fear of death is a far cry from fear of lack of wealth, but they’re both fear, the currency of cowardice.) As KRS-One (whose “Sound of Da Police” was actually the theme song for the trailer of that ridiculous movie I referenced earlier, which all but brought a tear to my eye), pointed out on his classic “Black Cop,” many policemen and policewomen are now earning paychecks for gathering up their own brothers and sisters, on charges that perpetually lead to a slap on the wrist for whites but somehow manage to be the first domino in a lifetime of enslavement for blacks. These cops get to use the “feeding my family” line too. We accept it, and go about our day, meek, bullied, and afraid to assert authority against anyone but each other, and amongst each other asserting authority with a ferocity that could only be explained by the rage of hundreds of years of being bullied by everybody else. In New York City, where infiltration and displacement are referenced using the the thinly veiled insult “gentrification” (look up the root word. “Gent.” If we accept and use a term the very definition of which suggests that communities are becoming more noble and graceful, what does that say about the people being pushed out?) natives know better than to display any aggression towards white newcomers, but are as quick as ever to stare down an unfamiliar black face who isn’t from the neighborhood.
 
What do you call people who walk quietly to slavery? Who allow themselves to be insulted without standing up for themselves beyond wardrobe adjustments that in reality are nothing but a public show of shame? What do you call people that pretend that these ridiculous gestures actually hold some weight rather than face the fact that we are the laughing stock of the entire planet, and as long there’s the chance that someday maybe we’ll be rich there’s nothing that we’re going to do about it?
 
I call us cowards.
 
It’s almost as if people have forgotten that struggle includes struggling. You might have to lose your job. You might have to lose your life. That’s what it takes for change to happen. There’s no easy way to do this. If you’re scared to stand up for yourself, for whatever reason, all I ask is that you stop pretending. Stop with the Facebook posts. Stop with the meaningless conversations. Just stop. Be honest. About how you behave. About your part in all this madness. About what you are. A coward. Just a coward. No need to put on an act for the rest of us. We can all see right through each other.
 
One last thing . . .
 
For those of you who have made it this far without stopping for how furious at me your shame has made you, I want you to know something. I don’t really think black people are cowards. I think humans are cowards. Most of us. I think that regardless of where one’s phenotype places them within the imaginary concept of race, that the majority of us are content to live on our knees rather than die on our feet.
 
The problem is, we, us, black people, can’t afford to be like everyone else anymore. Not if we want to survive. I don’t know how we got here, but everywhere you look we’re at the bottom of the global totem pole. We need to make history. We can’t be cowards like every one else, not any more. In fact, we need to set a new standard for heroism. For bravery. For courage. Maybe a standard never before seen in the history of humankind. Extreme situations call for extreme measures, and in modern times our inferiority is ingrained in every single aspect of our lives, from our media, to our religion, to our science, to our public education, to our higher education, to Africa appearing to be the same size as Greenland on all of the maps despite the fact that in reality Africa is 14 times larger. It’s harder to see our enemies than it’s ever been. Our enemy isn't white people. It's people who value greed more than human life. Racial division is one of their oldest weapons, and media is their latest. We mustn’t forget how young this weapon is. I didn’t grow up using the Internet. The television itself isn’t even 100 years old. The idea of global celebrity, and global transference of ideas and perceptions of culture, has never existed the way it does today. Just as Howard Beale prophesized in Network in 1976, we’re up against “the most awesome God damned propaganda force in the whole Godless world.”
 
We’re going to have to step it up.
 
If you’re down to step it up, let’s step it up. Let’s boycott. Boycott was the foundation of the Civil Rights movement. Do you believe that a cable network exists solely to manipulate the perception of black people? Stop watching it. Don’t put up a post one day praising the episode of Boondocks that never aired and then spend the next day tweeting the entire BET awards. That doesn’t make any sense.
 
Let’s step it up. If every NBA player who wanted to stand up against racism vowed not to play until the Clippers’ owner resigned, it would be announced that he resigned before you were finished reading this. If he didn’t want to, someone would make him. If we boycotted every night spot that spins music about how much we love killing each other and taking and selling drugs, every single one of them would have new DJs by next week (don’t even get me started on these new DJs. The new drug dealers. Admitting that they know what they’re giving people is bad for them but caring more about getting paid). I went to DJ Spinna’s Michael Jackson/Prince party at SRBs last night and there was more dancing and mirth and free love in that place than every hip hop party in NYC in the last 10 years put together. So when people tell you that we need ratchet nonsense to dance, they’re gaming you. Don’t be so gullible. Don’t act like black people only found out how to have fun when we lost our connection to our own human decency.
 
Let’s step it up and not buy magazines pushing music designed to glamorize a lifestyle certain to land our youth in prison.
 
Let’s step it up and take off from work and stay home with our kids until these preposterous tenure rules are revoked from public schools and it’s the kids that can’t be fired, not the teachers.
 
Let’s step it and use social media to rally each other. Everybody knew about that woman who fired a warning shot and got 20 years (I hear she’s been released now. No thanks to us). Everybody knows about that woman who got however many years for leaving her child in the car while she went to a job interview. Every single week all over Facebook there’s a new video of someone catching a beating as bad as the one Rodney King caught, but I never see a post that says, “Share this if you’ll go on strike from work until these police officers are fired.” “Share this if you’ll strike until this woman is released.” “Share this if you won’t spend a single dollar until Troy Davis is released from death row and granted a new trial.” Can you imagine the impact that that would have? Everybody is always trying to act there’s no solutions. There are plenty of solutions. We're just too cowardly to implement them. Worried about this discomfort or that discomfort, great or small, that might take place as a result. Having to find a new place to party. Or a new show to watch. Isn’t the discomfort of oppression enough? There’s plenty of solutions, just no easy ones, but if we can shift to courage instead of cowardice, there’s more than enough solutions to guarantee our success. Guarantee. Next time you’re complaining about how this country was built on us, take a second to think about the fact that it still is. If we want to, we can shut this whole place down.
 
So make a decision between cowardice and courage, and if you choose courage, step it up. Step it up in any of the myriad of ways that are available to us. I’ve named a few. Name a few more. Leave a few suggestions in the comments section. Call up your friends. Tweet. Facebook.
 
Then start doing them. If you can’t convince anyone to do them with you, do them on your own. Start right away because we’re running out of time. I hear some states are fining people for sagging their pants. I’d never sag my pants, but if we begin to allow people to be penalized simply for attributes that we’ve allowed to be associated with being black, we’re going to find the water getting even hotter very soon.
 
We’ve been cowards for a very long time. We have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s start right now.
 
For those of you who don’t want to step it up, do me a favor and at least unfriend me. won’t spend a single dollar until Troy Davis is released from death row and granted a new trial.” Can you imagine the impact that that would have? Everybody is always trying to act there’s no solutions. There are plenty of solutions. We're just too cowardly to implement them. Worried about this discomfort or that discomfort, great or small, that might take place as a result. Having to find a new place to party. Or a new show to watch. Isn’t the discomfort of oppression enough? There’s plenty of solutions, just no easy ones, but if we can shift to courage instead of cowardice, there’s more than enough solutions to guarantee our success. Guarantee. Next time you’re complaining about how this country was built on us, take a second to think about the fact that it still is. If we want to, we can shut this whole place down.

So make a decision between cowardice and courage, and if you choose courage, step it up. Step it up in any of the myriad of ways that are available to us. I’ve named a few. Name a few more. Leave a few suggestions in the comments section. Call up your friends. Tweet. Facebook.

Then start doing them. If you can’t convince anyone to do them with you, do them on your own. Start right away because we’re running out of time. I hear some states are fining people for sagging their pants. I’d never sag my pants, but if we begin to allow people to be penalized simply for attributes that we’ve allowed to be associated with being black, we’re going to find the water getting even hotter very soon.

We’ve been cowards for a very long time. We have a lot of catching up to do. Let’s start right now.

For those of you who don’t want to step it up, do me a favor and at least unfriend me.

 

 

Yeah, this is what I feel for the Clippers teams and what they chose to do. They agreed to Mandingo fight for a ring knowing that their owner thinks of them as simply black bodies and things to feed and clothe for his profit. Jig on, Clippers. Jig on.

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Big news! Donald Sterling is fined the maximum of $2.5 million and banned for life!

 

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has been banned for life by the NBA in response to racist comments the league says he made in a recorded conversation.

 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced the discipline Tuesday, saying that Sterling has been fined $2.5 million and that the league will attempt to force a sale of the Clippers.

 

Silver also stated that Sterling cannot attend any NBA games or practices, be present at any Clippers office or facility, or participate in business or player personnel decisions.

 

"We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling's views," Silver said. "They simply have no place in the NBA.

 

"This league is far bigger than any one owner, any one coach and any one player."

 

The fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti-discrimination and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the NBA and the Players Association, Silver said.

 

Silver's announcement came three days after the revelation of an audio recording in which Sterling made racist comments to a woman believed to be his girlfriend. Silver confirmed that the voice on the recording was Sterling's.

 

"The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful," Silver said.

 

The woman on the recording cooperated with the NBA, as did a third person who was in the room when the tape was made, a source told ESPN.com's Ramona Shelburne. The woman verified to the league that it was her and Sterling on the tapes, according to the source.

 

The recordings that have been released were made last September, the source said.

 

Basketball Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, who was mentioned in the audio recording, took to Twitter to applaud Silver.

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This is the best possible outcome that could have happened. And considering things like tenure, internal politics, and the overall marketability of sports, it's one I didn't really expect at all, much less to happen so soon. Many thanks to Silver.

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To say that Karma is a bitch would be an understatement at this point. Rock on Silver.

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That poor racist guy. He will be forced to live out the rest of his life with would at the very least be in excess of 750 million dollars (less 2.5 million), and he won't even fully grasp why. Plus he won't even get the second NAACP lifetime achievement award they were going to give him next month.

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Plus he won't even get the second NAACP lifetime achievement award they were going to give him next month.

 

Well it's not like he deserves it.

 

Unless that's the joke and I missed something.

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Well it's not like he deserves it.

Unless that's the joke and I missed something.

Tornado's post contains plenty of sarcasm, but the LA chapter of the NAACP was definitely going to give him a second lifetime achievement award until this scandal came out.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6bLKe9-Mto

Go to 4:20

Years ago, Bomani Jones wrote an article about Donald Sterling's housing discrimination and how he saw black people as "vermin" and Mexicans as "drunks" also how he did not want people living there. I remember reading that article in high school(I was in my afro-centric phase). I recall that no one cared then. The NBA did not do anything about having an owner of the team fucking over African Americans in LA. They did not give a shit about real structural racism, but when it was as comical as this shit, now people give a fuck. Yeah..no. And how he got those rewards were in due part because of those two law suits. He gave the NAACP money so discredit the charge that he is a fucking racist and the NAACP being a joke as they are, oblige and gave him the award. 

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The fuck are you talking about turbojet? You can't be rich and a racist unless you say something sensationalist that sounds good on the news.

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Well, better this than nothing. At least he won't hopefully now be the owner of a team I like. (Apparently he could reclaim possession with the divorce he's getting.)

Also, apparently Sterling has cancer and never told anyone.

He also finally came out and said something. Apparently he wishes he had "paid her to keep her mouth shut."

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think it's funny as all hell that we've gone two weeks of watching most of the media report on how awesome it is that he will be forced to sell the team, and it wasn't until his shitty attempt at an "apology" Monday where the NBA had any tangible basis to do it.

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