I am also shocked by how this was such a rush to judgement.
This story hit the internet early Saturday morning. By Tuesday afternoon, the commissioner came out with his punishment.
In only three days, did the commissioner really have enough time to evaluate all angles of this situation? Did he really have enough time for the NBA attorneys to evaluate all of the possible legal liability issues involved, such as, were those tapes made illegally, were the tapes part of an extortion or blackmail plot which didn’t work out, who would benefit from secret tapes being made public, etc???
Or was the NBA commissioner simply eager to appease the liberals and the politically correct crowd and black players who threatened a boycott? I wonder if these millionaire black players would really have walked away from their multi million dollar jobs to protest this????
Did the commissioner want to be seen as being strong and politically correct at the same time?
Perhaps some sanction was in order. Losing the team seems like the death penalty for a minor transgression in my opinion. But I am also stunned at how quickly this decision came down.
Other high profile sports transgressions, such as suspensions of Steinbrenner, or the banning of Pete Rose, had penalties imposed after a long period of investigation of those situations. I question how deeply this commish dug into the details in only 3 days.
The swiftness of the action was probably incumbent on 2 things: growing unrest in the player ranks including threats of mass walkout, and the fact that Sterling’s race problem had been an open secret for a long time. Columns have been written about Sterling’s race relations for years and years, but for whatever reason they never gained any traction, so the league was “safe” to ignore it. Add to that the decades he was seemingly deliberately putting a second rate team on the court and it’s probable the league office had been contemplating getting rid of him for quite some time. The investigation probably consisted of double checking with the lawyers to see if their case was solid and checking with the other owners to make sure Silver would have the necessary backing.