Adam Silver, the new and recently named Commissioner of the NBA had a tough decision on one of his first days on the job. After a recording of Donald Sterling the owner of the NBA Los Angeles Clippers making extremely racist remarks like this one “”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” to his girlfriend V. Stiviano recently surfaced on TMZ and backlash immediately ensued.
Everyone from media outlets to activists to the individual NBA players had a response to the audio tape and the remarks. Now that a decision has been made by Adam Silver and a monumental one it was. Donald Sterling received a lifetime ban from the NBA and was fined $2.5M dollars, the maximum amount allowed under the NBA’s constitution. Adam silver in his press conference stated that “Mr. Sterling may not attend any games or practices, hey may not be present at any Clippers facility, and he may not participate in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team. He will also be barred from attending NBA Board of Governors meetings or participating in any other league activity.” “I will urge the Board of Governors to exercise its authority to force a sale of the team”
Support for the decision of a lifetime ban for Donald Sterling was immediately supported by everyone around the NBA. The LA Clippers posted “WE ARE ONE” on their webpage, and Chris Paul who is the Clippers All-Star point guard and president of the players’ union stated “In response to today’s ruling by the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver, my teammates and I are in agreement with his decision. We appreciate the strong leadership from Commissioner Silver and he has our full support.”
Other people involved in the NBA like Earvin Magic Johnson and the Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have taken to Twitter to voice their opinions, and it seems like everyone is in full support of the decision. So the question now is not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when Donald Sterling will be giving up ownership and selling the team.
Former and current NBA players are very happy and satisfied with Commissioner Silver’s ruling.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) April 29, 2014
I agree 100% with Commissioner Silvers findings and the actions taken against Donald Sterling
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) April 29, 2014
