Things just got fishier today.
Media reports are coming out today that Rochelle Sterling is prepared to agree to a forced sale of the Clippers as long as money terms can be agreed with by the NBA.
Reports have been coming out in a number of media outlets that Rochelle Sterling and the NBA are in discussions as to agree to sell the Clippers before the proposed June 3 hearing to expel LACBC Inc. from the league entirely. Reports which surfaced at TMZ (who broke the tapes in the first place) and ESPN indicate that Donald Sterling has officially surrendered the Clippers.
Given the comments released yesterday by Mark Cuban, this is very suspicious.
Doubly, given the banishment from the league of Sterling about three weeks ago by Commissioner Adam Silver, he is in no legal position to authorize such a sale at this time.
The question is, at this juncture, does this not make this process moot by Rochelle, effectively forcing the June 3rd hearing...
Which brings us back to the first reason that the timing on this comes across as quite suspicious: Mark Cuban.
After having a day to reflect on his comments (and, more correctly, their timing and ramifications thereof), today's reports come across as especially puzzling, because, as Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News put it, that was the best news Sterling's lawyers could've gotten.
The longer I muse on the comments, the more certain I become: The NBA has to charge Cuban for many of the same offenses they charge Sterling with under the NBA Constitution. (Most prominently that, by making his own statements with complete disregard of the ramifications for the league's case against Sterling, Cuban has violated his Duty of Loyalty to the NBA.)
Failure to do so turns the entire mess into a witch hunt that could tear the league asunder if Silver and the legal team at the NBA are not very careful.
That said, there is a very simple counter to today's news:
Null and void.
Donald Sterling cannot legally make any action with respect to the Clippers, due to his banishment from the league April 29.
The only person who could actually give Rochelle that authority is NBA-selected CEO of the Clippers Richard Parsons (who has now run into trouble of his own when it was discovered his basketball resume was false!!!), because Sterling's business-ownership interests in the Clippers now reside with Parsons, until the June 3 meeting has the NBA fully seize the team.
The more I read into this, the more I am beginning to believe the only real grounds the NBA have about LACBC Inc. number two:
1) The players strike if Sterling is still in the NBA.
2) The refusal to pay the $2,500,000 fine.
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