Posted on 05/16/2014 7:35:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
SI.com has learned that Clippers owner Donald Sterling has hired prominent antitrust litigator Maxwell Blecher, who has written a letter to NBA executive vice president and general counsel Rick Buchanan threatening to sue the NBA. The letter, sources tell SI.com, claims that Sterling has done nothing wrong and that "no punishment is warranted" for Sterling. Blecher also tells Buchanan that Sterling will not pay the $2.5 million fine, which is already past due. Blecher ends the letter by saying this controversy "will be adjudicated."
Blecher's letter makes clear what many have anticipated: Donald Sterling will not go down without a fight and that he is taking active steps toward litigation. A letter of this type is considered a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit. Blecher's letter offers no ambiguity about Sterling's intentions.
"We reject your demand for payment," the letter tells Buchanan, who on May 14 informed Sterling by letter that he must pay the $2.5 million fine.
Blecher's letter goes on to identify two basic legal defenses for Sterling.
First, Blecher claims that Sterling has not violated any article of the NBA constitution. The letter curiously references Article 35, which governs players' misconduct, and several other provisions. The NBA is expected to argue that Sterling violated Article 13(d) among other provisions. Article 13 (d) bars owners from violating contractual obligations, including the obligation that owners no engage in unethical conduct or take positions adverse to the NBA. Blecher does not explain how he intends to prove Sterling's racist remarks captured on the secret recording -- followed by Sterling's incendiary remarks to Anderson Cooper about Magic Johnson -- do not give rise to unethical conduct or positions adverse to the NBA.
(Excerpt) Read more at sportsillustrated.cnn.com ...
Franchisees get stripped, there’s nothing new about this. Usually it’s based on finances, but embarrassing the league is always a possible reason. And it’s not a fake recording, and he won’t be bought out for peanuts (which would devalue the other franchises).
And it’s not a fake recording, and he won’t be bought out for peanuts (which would devalue the other franchises).
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I didn’t mean that THIS was a fake recording ,, but that the technology exists for anyone with a pc to fake anything they want and put their target at risk... it just takes a good amount of sampled conversation. When anyone can be targeted with penalties that far exceed any sense of reasonableness then the ownership becomes valueless ... To use your McDonalds analogy ,, this episode is about as troubling as a McDonalds franchisee being photographed by a employee that he recently fired at a Wendy’s ... and losing his franchise license (what is it now ,, about $650k?) ,, having to rename his restaurant McDougals and repaint the yellow stripe green.
Wrong article. The appropriate article is Article 24(l).
It’s not actually that easy to fake things, editing software leaves traces. And Sterling isn’t getting in trouble because of this single incident, he has a long history of being a problematic owner who has been lucky enough to keep his various scandals off the front page and avoiding punishment. When Sterling’s history is taken as a whole this punishment isn’t excessive in anyway, it’s the just reward of 30 years of being the guy the NBA really wants to punish but he never quite crosses the threshold. People have been calling for his ousting for a long time, he finally triggered it.
********* The article quoted by doodledawg ********
(l) The Commissioner shall, wherever there is a rule for which no penalty is specifically fixed for violation thereof, have the authority to fix such penalty as in the Commissioner’s judgment shall be in the best interests of the Association. Where a situation arises which is not covered in the Constitution and By-Laws , the Commissioner shall have the authority to make such decision, including the imposition of a penalty, as in his judgment shall be in the best interests of the Association. The penalty that may be assessed under the preceding two sentences may include, without limitation, a fine, suspension, and/or the forfeiture or assignment of draft choices. No monetary penalty fixed under this provision shall exceed $2,500,000.
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NEGATIVE , as this article clearly states it only comes into play when no other article covers the situation , and this one clearly is ... by 35A(d) ,, he may be fined $1M and suspended , for any length of time .. but as that clause clearly applies it negates the 24(l) "Commissioner is GOD" clause. IT DOES NOT APPLY. Sorry , but you'll see this play out in the courts ... it's painfully clear.
It’s not actually that easy to fake things, editing software leaves traces.
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It is incredibly easy to fake things like audio ,, as a last step simply do an analog recording onto tape to kill all the telltales in the digital, then re-record onto digital if you want to pretend it was on digi media all along. Besides you’re going to give an undocumentable analog copy to TMZ and destroy your target in the media for several YEARS before the “original” is ever produced in court.
I don’t care about what he did 10 , 20 or 30 years ago ,, yes he is an embarrassment ,,, If I drive 1 mph over the speed limit for 100 days in a row (21mph in a 20mph school zone)do you pull me over and write me a ticket for driving 120mph through a 20 mph school zone on day 101? minor indiscretions are annoying but you don’t pile them up and scoop them into one big ticket .. if they’re not big enough ,, THEY’RE NOT BIG ENOUGH.. and they are dropped and forgotten.
You might not care what he did 10, 20, 30 years ago, but the NBA does, and with this scandal the PRESS finally did.
It all depends on how often you get caught. Think of Sterling as that class cutup, not the one who always gets in trouble but the one who stops just before getting in trouble. Then one day he pushes it too far, and the school lands on him like a ton of bricks, it seems disproportional to the crime, but there’s years of “almost” adding to it.
Sterling’s previous crimes didn’t get dropped and forgotten, you can tell because the press brought them back up. That was one of his biggest problems when this hit, half the guys that cover the NBA nationally could (and did) point to columns they had written in years past and say “none of this is new”. Bomani Jones talked about that, he’d written a column 5 or 6 years ago about Sterling’s racist tendencies that got largely ignored, then the weekend this story broke it got found and shared thousands of times on social media. In the internet age the past is never gone, it’s one good google search away, and Sterling’s past became a part of this scandal.
It is also a quick search away for many other owners... The next time Magic or some other player wants to steal a franchise they know THEY will be in the crosshairs ... this makes franchises worthless if they can be stolen with impunity. There is enough dirt out there on everyone ,, I don’t care if you’re talking about a crack whore or the pope.
I disagree with you on the old episodes ,, after enough time has passed with no reprisals they become irrelevant to the current argument.
I don’t think most of the other owners have that kind of baggage. This is a pit Sterling dug for himself, and he keeps digging. The Anderson Cooper interview did him no favors. And now refusing to pay the fine isn’t helping either. And nobody is stealing anybody’s franchise, IF Magic buys it (which I highly doubt) it’ll be at a fair market value, it’s bad for the league if a franchise sells for dirt cheap because the last sale always sets the negotiating basis for the next. The league sold the Hornets for 338 million, the league doesn’t want the Clippers to sell for less than 400 million preferably closer to half a billion, it’s a big market team with good broadcast contracts and good fan support, if it sells cheap it undercuts the next 2 or 3 team sales.
It’s about PR, it doesn’t matter how old the episodes are if they’re generating bad publicity NOW.
I hope Magic does buy it ,, this is undoubtedly near the top of the market ... Other owners may not have such baggage , quite honestly I don’t like or watch Basketball ,, but the thug players certainly do and we see comments the same or worse ignored weekly ,, we don’t see players banned for life and their actions and words are more closely watched according to the constitution. It’s pretty clear somebody was running the girl to force a sale.
A couple of years ago he might have, but then Jerry Buss died. Buss owned the Lakers and was one of the most talented owners in sports (a fact that always made Sterling a mediocre owner sharing the same building look even worse), but so far the rest of the Buss family isn’t showing the aptitude for running a basketball team, the Lakers stink and aren’t showing any signs of bouncing back. Meanwhile Magic was a Laker and is unabashed about still being a fan of the team. If he’s not involved with another team there’s a very good chance of him getting a position, maybe even partial ownership, of the Lakers.
The player’s words don’t generate the PR. It really is all about the publicity. It’s part of why Sterling got away with it so long, it always stayed off the front page, until finally it didn’t. In the end nobody in the league (or any other league) cares if owners, coaches, or players are racists, or pedophiles, or any other sin, so long as it stays off the front page. I think the Sterling situation is a matter of bad timing, with the Lakers descendant and the Clipper ascending a lot more attention was being paid to the Clippers than usual, add that the NFL draft had been pushed back from the old schedule and we had a slow sports news window, then you get the salacious details of the Sterling thing with the mistress, and finally add the dozens of articles already written about Sterling’s race problem. It was bound to be a front page story eventually and all the right ingredients finally fell into place.
GETS BETTER AND BETTER ..
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Black NBA Owner Holds “Blacks Only Parties, No Whites Allowed” – NBA Silent!
PCMD Gazette Blog ^ | May 17, 2014
Posted on 5/19/2014, 3:31:44 AM by Impala64ssa
In the wake of this week’s NBA proposed lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine for Donald Sterling, a longtime reader reminded me that I’d written about another NBA owner, a Black man, who held a party in which Whites were refused entry and turned away. And, yet, the NBA did nothing.
As Americas Feedom Fighters already pointed out, Black racism and bigotry against Whites, Jews, Mormons, and gays is tolerated by the NBA.
But a private racist conversation by a White owner is not. And here is an instance of a Black then-NBA owner whose public, deliberate racism was tolerated and ignored. Jay-Z a/k/a Shawn Carter was an owner of the Brooklyn Nets, an NBA Team, from 2003 through mid-April 2013. But, as I noted on this site, in February 2010, Jay-Z held a lavish party at the Merah club in central London, and banned White people from attending. The party, for music industry executives, reporters, and other Jay-Z ass-kissers was for Blacks only. Bouncers were instructed to refuse entry to Whites.
Reader Chris reminded me that I’d written about this, and noted:
“Wasn’t Jay-Z part owner of Brooklyn/New Jersey Nets when he threw that racist party you wrote about? I don’t remember any NBA controversy over that.”
I don’t either, but here’s a reminder from my 2010 post, “More Obama ‘Post-Racialism’ Courtesy of Jay-Z“:
The man is an idiot.
The NBA cannot force him to sell his basketball team.
What the NBA CAN do is strip him of his franchise. Any franchise can be taken away—it’s in the terms of the contract.
So, let Sterling whine. He ends up losing the ability for his players to play in the nBA.
Free speech cannot be prohibited by the government. Corporations prohibit it every day.
Sell the team and be done with it. The guy is an old horny fool.
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