Donald Sterling a disgrace

There is a reason why the Los Angeles Clippers will never be as liked or accomplish as much as their rival older brother Los Angeles Lakers have. It can be summed up in two words: Donald Sterling.

It isn’t because of their poor play or lack of talent in past years, though both have been clearly evident. Instead, it’s because of their owner and the bad karma that can get deep into the organization. Not everyone believes in karma but when dealing with such a man as Sterling, karma rears its ugly head over and over.

Being the leader of both the Clippers and Players Association, Chris Paul needs to step up and do something about his teams owner Donald Sterling. By Verse Photography (Flickr: 20131118 ClippersvGrizzles41) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

We all know that he has been accused of being openly racist in the past. For example, in 2006 he was sued by the US Department of Justice over housing discrimination for refusing to rent apartments to blacks and families with children. It took him three years to pay a settlement to end the lawsuit. 

Next we heard that former general manager Elgin Baylor sued Sterling by accusing him for firing him “on the basis of age and race.”   Sterling has had a history of being openly racist but his recent comment once again prove that the NBA needs to take a harder stance on racism and deal with it in a manner that is appropriate and shows that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated at any level.

Last week, TMZ found audio footage of Sterling talking to his girlfriend and telling her that he didn’t want her to bring African Americans to his game anymore.

Per TMZ, Sterling allegedly said, “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.”

The girlfriend had posted a picture of herself and Magic Johnson on her Instagram account which has now been deleted. The ironic and ridiculous part about all this is that the Clippers three most essential pieces to their team’s success are African American in Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and coach Doc Rivers.

The NBA should not allow this man to own a NBA franchise any longer. New commissioner Adam Silver has a Goodell-and-Vick-like opportunity to step up and take action early in his regime. He has a chance to do something that his predecessor David Stern failed to do on many occasions.

Simply letting Sterling go this long without punishment shows some sort of weakness within the NBA front office. Donald Sterling is a disgrace of a human being, a disgrace to the NBA and a disgrace to all of his African American employees. If I were any of the Clippers players or coaches, I would seriously consider boycotting the rest of the season until Sterling stepped down as owner. Drastic times call for drastic measures and with star player Chris Paul heading the Players Association, and Kevin Johnson involved, this situation is far from over.