Seven Hours Down The Road..

It's about six in the evening now here in suburbs of LA.

Seven hours ago, Adam Silver, the commissioner of a major sports league, showed a set of fucking balls.

Take notes, Selig.

Get a clue, Goodell.

Adam Silver threw Donald Sterling, one of the precious preferred group known as "owners", out of his league.

I think we need to take a look at the last seven hours, since what I last typed:

• Several things from the Yahoo! Sports "Ball Don't Lie" blog.  The first is something that surprises even me, much less surprised the blog's Dan Devine.  I made a joke in the post this morning about the NBA being a secret handshake society, and in that the NBA constitution and by-laws are secret documents.

They are secret no more.  The NBA published them, in full, this afternoon.

A rather large .PDF document was posted today by the National Basketball Association, as part of Adam Silver's commitment to transparency as Commissioner.

• The relevant question appears to fall under Article 13 of the NBA Constitution, on page 26 by the count of the brochure.  

"The Membership of a Member [that would be a team in the NBA] or the interest of any Owner may be terminated by a vote of three fourths (3/4) of the Board of Governors if the Member or Owner shall do or suffer any of the following:"

"(a) Willfully violate any of the provisions of the Constitution and By-Laws, resolutions, or agreements of the Association."

It would appear as if this gives the power to call a meeting of the Board of Governors to expel Sterling as an Owner.

Because the Board of Governors is consisted of Owners (or designees) with the power to bind teams to their votes (one per team/Member -- Article 18), this would mean that the Commissioner could call upon the owners to force Sterling to sell, and a 3/4 vote, 22 of the other 29, would be required.

• And another note on "Ball Don't Lie" today indicates that might be a fait accompli:  Adam Wojnarowski put together a list of comments from all 29 other teams' owners, indicating either support of Silver's decision or condemnation of the remarks.  True, as Woj notes, it doesn't necessarily mean they would vote for an Article 13 Termination should it come up, but it seems they have the support to do so.
• Sterling, in response, has ominously stated that the Clippers are not for sale.

Oh, really, Donald?

First off, you've already had your business interest as an Owner terminated.  This gives the Commissioner broad powers to actually reassign those interests to whomever he so chooses (Article 14A(b) (which covers termination of all such interests, including that of ownership) seems to indicate that material control of the Clippers, right now, rests with the NBA, who can then sell/give that control to anyone they choose.  It was not completely out of the question to see Magic Johnson with material control of the Clippers in time for their Game 5 showdown with Golden State tonight!), at least with respect to the business decisions thereto.

Second, I would have to think, with the decision to ban you for life, that the process to terminate your ownership completely has been started.

1. Any owner, or the Commissioner, can file a written charge for Termination under Article 13.
2. The Commissioner has three days to deliver that charge to Sterling.
3. Sterling would have five days, from that point, to respond.
4. Within ten days of that response, Sterling would effectively be "tried" by the NBA Board of Governors, with the aforementioned 3/4 vote needed for expulsion.
5. Should he remain belligerent, there is always the opportunity for the NBA to change the Article 13 Termination from that of an Owner to that of the Member -- the full dissolution of the Los Angeles Clippers, according to ESPN's Lester Munson.  Munson says the step would be drastic, but if it's the only way to get Sterling to listen...

And the timing of this could be a very itchy propostion.  Obviously, Silver would like to try to get the other owners and business interests of the league to lean on Sterling to voluntarily sell.  Also, letting some time pass might keep this from completely blowing up the 2014 NBA Playoffs, which Sterling has done a fine job of doing in the first round.

But if the NBA waits too long, or if Sterling actually can get 8 votes to keep him owner of the Clippers, there, in fact, IS the ominous possibility of a player strike:

• Roger Mason Jr., vice-president of the NBA Players Association, stated that, had Silver not come down with this type of punishment, a player strike was on the table as a very real possibility.

In fact, Mason noted that a condition for the continuance of play of these playoffs by the remaining 15 teams (though Charlotte's reps were probably also involved in the discussion, they have been eliminated) was a demand for an Article 13 Termination.

Doubly scary, they were considering starting the strike with tonight's three games.  Commissioner Silver was notified of the consideration.  It appears, according to the ESPN article on the subject, Silver either announced the ban today (and didn't appear to go far enough, but seemed to convince the NBAPA he was going to), or there were no games tonight!!

So, as much as it appears it would behoove the NBA to try to allow some back-door leaning on Sterling to get him to sell voluntarily, it appears that NBA Constitution charges will probably have to be filed against Sterling all but immediately, forcing this story into the forefront over the next three weeks.

(For the record, and continuing-ly ominous:  The reason the NBAPA vice-president has had to take the forefront of this issue is that the President of the NBAPA is Chris Paul...  of the Los Angeles Clippers!)

Most all of the reaction has been positive, but there are some exceptions:

• Jason Whitlock, ESPN:  "Removing Donald Sterling from the NBA solves nothing. It sets a precedent that will likely boomerang and harm the black players and coaches who are shocked and outraged that an 80-year-old man with a documented history of bigoted actions also has bigoted private thoughts.  Let's be careful here. From the owner's box to the locker room, professional sports are overrun with wealthy men in complicated, volatile sexual relationships. If TMZ plans to make "pillow talk" public and the standard is set that "pillow talk" is actionable, it won't be long before a parade of athletes joins Sterling on Ignorance Island."

Perhaps that needs to happen, though.  Perhaps this kind of "parade" needs to occur, in all sports (consider what NFL players have probably been allowed to get away with for decades now with "fixers" and schools protecting their backs and all that crap).

And also consider what a friend of mine responded with: This isn't just one incident of "Ignorance".  This is years and years of problems with racial tensions with this scumbag.  Not only that, but that raises the question as to why this took this, and not the housing lawsuit or the lawsuits by former Clippers employees to get it done.

(And that raises the situation of Sterling deciding to "Scorched Earth" the league with the skeletons he knows about...)

Jason, I understand that you support Sterling in no way, shape, nor form.  That said, this needed to happen, and it needs to happen more in the entire sphere of sports.  We are far too corrupt, far too criminal, and far too thug-friendly in sports (at all levels!) not to force a mass house-cleaning.  We are almost certainly to the point that, on the "owner's box" end, we have enough chicanery and stupidity which has allowed a once-"sport" (if you believe football was ever one) to be turned into a player-safety farce which probably now needs to be abolished.

And, as for the players, perhaps it's time we make everybody (no matter how "economically important" you are) toe the damn line.

• ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor with a piece blasting David Stern for how long this was allowed to go on.

This is one of the major concerns I have with such a bombastic fuck like Sterling (who I just saw on the video with this article has the worst winning percentage of any owner in any major sport in this country with 15+ years as owner).

Donald Sterling, as I've said before, knows where the skeletons are.

And I think part of what you blast, Ian, could be attributed to Sterling making that known.  He was around for "The Jordan Rules", the '85 draft, the work stoppages, etc.