NBA Scandal -- Ever Wonder How LA Clippers' Owner Spends $$$ He Saves On Good Players?

The Smoking Gun ^ | August 15, 2004 | The Smoking Gun

[L.N. Smithee]

NBA Owner In Sex Scandal

Los Angeles Clippers boss admitted he paid to play

AUGUST 12--Just what the NBA needs, another sex scandal: Donald Sterling, the miserly tycoon who owns the Los Angeles Clippers, testified last year that he regularly paid a Beverly Hills woman for sex, describing her as a $500-a-trick "freak" with whom he coupled "all over my building, in my bathroom, upstairs, in the corner, in the elevator." Sterling's graphic testimony--which came during a two-day pretrial deposition in connection with a lawsuit he filed against the woman, Alexandra Castro--will surely nettle basketball commissioner David Stern, who normally has to explain away the behavior of 20-something athletes, not married 70-year-old club owners worth nearly a billion. During a sworn January 2003 deposition, Sterling denied having a relationship with Castro, though he changed his testimony when questioned again last August. In often explicit detail, Sterling recounted three years of transactions with Castro, whom he met in mid-1999 (below you'll find excerpts from Sterling's deposition). While acknowledging that, "maybe I morally did something wrong," the Clippers owner was not shy when it came to describing hour-long sessions with Castro, whom Sterling credited with "s***ing me all night long" and whose "best sex was better than words could express." Testifying that he was "quietly concealing it from the world," Sterling had a blunt appraisal of his "exciting" relationship with Castro: "It was purely sex for money, money for sex, sex for money, money for sex." Sterling, a Los Angeles real estate mogul, bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million and the franchise--one of the most profitable in the NBA--is now worth more than $200 million. Since Sterling's purchase, the team has amassed the NBA's worst combined record and gained a reputation as a stingy operation that will trade an exceptional player before paying him a superstar's salary. (14 pages)

[L.N. Smithee]

I don't know, but it sounds like the owner sure can take it to the hole.

Or, more accurately, "Take it to the ho."

[NYCVirago]

I believe that Sterling is the only owner in the NBA to run a franchise that has posted a profit for 14 straight years. Odd.

It's like small-market owners in baseball who make lots of money on their team, but devalue their own franchise with their cheapskate moves. On the other hand, George Steinbrenner spends a ton of money on the Yankees, but he ultimately has increased the value of his franchise from $10 million (what he paid for it) to over a billion (what it's worth now) by putting great teams on the field and increasing fan interest. The fact that the Clippers are only worth $200 million is pathetic -- they should be worth a lot more, but Sterling is only interested in the short-term money he makes off it, not the long-term value of the franchise.

[NYCVirago]

Additionally, perhaps a legal eagle could confirm or deny another possibility; that Sterling is trying to avoid being charged with perjury after saying in January 2003 that he had no intimate relationship with Castro. He insists his affectionate letters to Castro ("I adore you more than words can express") really meant that she was the best roll-in-the-hay he ever had, and that if their relationship was purely sex-for-cash/gifts, that means they weren't ever really "intimate."

Your assessment on this sounds right on the money. And from what I've heard about "high-class" Hollywood hookers, $500 is pretty cheap. The reason celebrities spend more on the prostitutes is for discretion and safety -- so they don't have to be worried about getting ripped off by the hookers, or seeing their name in the tabloids. You get what you pay for, and Sterling being a cheapskate on this meant that he got what celebrities try to avoid. And yeah, he is pretty Clintonian.