SAN ANTONIO – In the midst of his first NBA Finals as the league’s commissioner, Adam Silver met with the media before Game 2 here at the very well air-conditioned AT&T Center, and while several subjects were on the docket, it was the pending sale of the Clippers to billionaire Steve Ballmer that dominated the talk.
Silver said that although the sale to Ballmer for $2 billion still has some steps that need undertaking, they are mostly formal and he characterized the transaction as, “almost there,” and said the sale could be approved at the Board of Governors meeting in mid-July.
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The lingering issue is that Sterling has not yet dropped his lawsuit against Silver and the league. But Silver explained that, because Shelly Sterling had her husband found mentally incapacitated and indemnified the league against any lawsuit, Donald Sterling is effectively boxed in.
“I have absolute confidence it will be resolved because as part of the sale agreement with Shelly Sterling, she agreed to indemnify the league against a lawsuit by her husband,” Silver said. “So in essence, Donald is suing himself and he knows that. While I understand he is frustrated, I think it’s over. I think it’s just a matter of time now, and then we will move on to better topics and back to the Finals.”
It was suggested that Sterling could be holding out on dropping his lawsuit in order to extract some concession from the league, perhaps a lowering of the maximum $2.5 million fine he incurred in the wake of the racist rant that was caught on tape or a softening of the lifetime ban Silver put on Sterling in late April.
But Silver was emphatic in his response. “There is absolutely no possibility that the lifetime ban will be rescinded or that the fine will be changed in any way,” he said.
Silver was also asked about the NBA’s history with Sterling, and why nothing was done about his past transgressions—Sterling had a long history of being accused of making reprehensible and racist remarks. But Silver pointed out that those cases were settled out of court, so the league’s ability to act was limited.
“I would only say I don’t have any specific regrets,” Silver said. “You know, in hindsight should we have done more to investigate Donald? I’m frankly not sure. In this case, I mean, in addition to the fact that this tape in essence was broadcast to the world and so quickly became available to us, in the past these were issues that did not directly impact the NBA. And we’re not the government. He was investigated by the Department of Housing, the Department of Justice. There were individual lawsuits with him that settled out.
“When we monitored those events, at least it felt at that time that we were doing the appropriate thing. It’s a fair point that, in hindsight, possibly we should have done more. Certainly, if I had to do it again, maybe we would have done more but our eyes are open going forward.”