In the aftermath of the racist Donald Sterling remarks and Sterling’s subsequent ban for life, I am overcome by a few overwhelming thoughts:

Chris Paul is the Players Union president, and plays for the Clippers. By nikk_la, via Wikimedia Commons

He left the NBA no choice

Or at least no good one… . The league is comprised of nearly 80% of its players who are African-American. Players and fans were ready to stage a revolt, including rumors about player boycotts from teams other than the Clippers. Like Roger Goodell during the Michael Vick incident, new NBA commissioner Adam Sliver had to bring the hammer down. Taking a Thor-like swing, Silver made a statement in an unprecedented punishment of an owner.

At this point, the stage is set for other NBA owners to force Sterling to sell the team. With his history, there is no other recourse. Socially, if the NBA is to stay legitimate and viable, there is no other option or choice.

The precedent it sets is scary though, you’ll have to admit. Sterling’s racist history is well-documented — perhaps a reason why this particular case warranted such swift and strong action. But which person out there has never made an insensitive comment or statement? Who hasn’t said something outlandish they are glad isn’t out in the ether? Who hasn’t said something to their spouse or girlfriend that they would never in a million years want their employer to hear?

If someone from the University of Indiana has a tape of Mark Cuban saying something stupid, are we going to force Cuban to sell the Mavs? Mark Jackson has made it clear where he stands on homosexuality. Is he going to be in the line of fire, too? 

The question of exactly where the line is and what is ever forgivable will be hotly debated. Perhaps that’s the good that can come of this — more good dialogue about race in this country. Something tells me that it’s already getting pretty political though, which will really hurt the chances of any kind of real debate in the garbage PTI/FirstTake/Crossfire social dialogue we’ve created over the past decade.

Where art thou, David Stern?

Where’s David Stern in all this? Glad he’s retired, that’s where.

Stern sat idly by for years as Sterling’s wrap sheet got longer and longer. Jerry Buss owned lots of real estate. Did we ever hear about him being embroiled in discrimination talk? Sterling has always had a bad reputation when it comes to race relations, which is why, while sad, wasn’t a surprise.

The fact that it wasn’t a surprise to a fan like me makes me believe now, more than ever, that Stern waited about 5-10 years too long to retire. In terms of managing public image, Stern always overestimated himself and his league.

Who gets to be the thought police?

An interesting backlash to this story will be to hear people talking about hypocrisy. Whether it’s this post about Jay-Z that has been popular on my social media feed today, or other more moderate versions I’ve read, we are going to have to figure out where the “line” is, and also accept that that line is going to be in a different place for different people.

When something like this quagmire happens, my questions isn’t whether it will happen again, but rather when? Once the precedent is set, everyone is in jeopardy.

To be clear

To be clear here, I think Silver did the right thing — the only thing he could have done given where the league is now. I don’t think he had any other choice. I believe Donald Sterling is a bad guy who ran his mouth to the wrong mistress and is paying the appropriate price. He’ll probably wind up selling his team, on which he’ll probably make about 65-times what he paid for it. His lifestyle won’t change, except he won’t get to see the organization and fans he milked for as long as I’ve been on this planet.

Prior to this season, that losing franchise had won just 17 playoff games in 32 seasons, including just four in Sterling’s first 25 years at the helm.

What I’d really like to see come out of it is a better, real discussions about issues related to race and prejudice.

If you want to read something that contextualizes this fiasco better than I ever could, check out Jason Whitlock’s piece on this fiasco.  Seriously, if you haven’t read it, you probably should.

If you don’t feel like reading any more words, here’s an informative clip from Bomani Jones on a radio show that is also worth a listen.

Matt Dale is a friend of Fansmanship and has been a podcast guest in the past. Today, he had a semi-unique perspective on the Donald Sterling fiasco:

Donald Sterling (center) probably won’t be the owner of the Clippers for much longer. By Cliffwildes (NBA event), via Wikimedia Commons

By: Matt Dale

Donald Sterling is a disgusting and vile racist. No question there — however Adam Silver and the NBA’s decision to remove him is a misguided attempt to cure an error of thoughts and beliefs.

A brief disclaimer – I am an avowed liberal and proud Democrat and I believe that Silver and the NBA owners are wrong.

To remove an owner, basically what’s happening, for private thoughts and speech is a clear violation of our American liberal capitalist beliefs and system. Sterling’s feelings on these issues are not news to anyone around the league.

At this point the league is deciding what thoughts are okay and which are not. To this point – Mark Jackson is an outspoken critic of gay marriage. Does he get to keep his job? And who gets to decide: Adam Silver, the individual players or the fans?

Moving beyond the issue of racism, and to continue with the Jackson situation, has the league now begun legislating thoughts? Has Mark Cuban ever used a homosexual slur? What about the other league owners?

My suggestion: let the markets decide. If players, sponsors and fans want to be aligned with a racist – let it be known through their continued association. Should any of these groups disagree – simply refuse to be associated with this team and man. He will feel the pain both competitively and economically very soon.

Sterling’s bottom line, and more importantly, his social status will suffer and rightly so. In a league that is at its heart a business, this should be enough to right any wrongs.

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.

1) Safety. It’s pretty simple: when a guy gets beat to the edge of his life on opening day and when the stadium already has a history of parking lot shootings, people are wary for their own personal safety.

Even if they aren’t worried about getting beaten or shot, there are increasing amounts of vulgarity and belligerent behavior that I know I wouldn’t want my wife or kids to see (if I had kids).

Can you spot the troublemakers?

2) Carlos Santana, Russell Martin, Trayvon Robinson, et al. These are players the Dodgers have traded or allowed to walk away who are all-stars or future stars in the league, and they aren’t the only players the Dodgers have made personnel mistakes with. While the Phillies (who the Dodgers faced in the 2008 NLCS)  have made every move imaginable over the past 3 years to make their team better, the Dodgers have struggled to stay even mediocre.

If you want to see everything the Dodgers should have been doing with their roster, look at the Phillies. If you want to see pretty much everything the Dodgers should not be doing, from a roster standpoint, look at, well, the Dodgers.

Who would Dodgers fans rather have right now: Casey Blake or Carlos Santana? Would you give up the playoff run in 2008 if you could have Santana at catcher or first base even? Russell Martin was probably a move the Dodgers had to make, but it’s still frustrating to see him doing so well with a well-run organization.

And what about Robinson? He was touted as one of the gems in the farm system and initial reaction to his being traded (by people who know a lot more than me, like mikesciosciastragicillness.com) is that the Dodgers got fleeced.

3. Cost/Value: During the McCourt regime, the price of a Dodgers ticket has become more and more expensive without the relative value of the team on the field changing at a commensurate level. In other words, fans are paying more for the same mediocre roster. Instead of old ex-Giants Jeff Kent and Jason Schmidt, we have Juan Uribe… and what would I do to have a Jeff Kent-level player, even during his time with the Dodgers, on the roster right now…?

The team seems like something Donald Sterling might put together if he was a baseball owner. What a sad day when I’m comparing the owner of the Dodgers to Donald Sterling.

The team has some stars, but the overall entertainment value has become a hollow shell of what it used to be. The experience is certainly different, but it’s grown far worse and this fact has never been acknowledged by Frank or any of his people.

4.  Blue Land – The Dodgers spend $14-15 million per year on, get this, rent. Apparently McCourt has broken up the Dodgers’ holdings into separate entities. One of these is called “Blue Land” and the Dodgers pay it huge bucks for rent — far more than other teams pay for rent throughout the league.

On top of that fact, the ambiance of the place has been lost. Ushers seem more like ill-trained automatons than the baseball-knowledgable, straw-hat-wearing ushers of the past. Fans aren’t able to move into unoccupied seats, even late into the game.

The scoreboard is filled with obscure stats, for example that James Loney was the 11th best hitter in late game situations when Vin Scully had chicken for dinner between June 27, 2007 and May 3, 2010. I’m only exaggerating a little here.

To top off the point about “Blue Land,” I’ll describe something that happened to my family during the last game I attended. In the 8th inning, on a 95 degree day, the Loge Level concession stand ran out of water. The water at the stadium already costs $6.50 and on a day this hot, they SOLD OUT OF BOTTLED WATER. It seems like someone could have made a Costco run when they realized that there is an announced crowd of over 35,000 people and they clearly didn’t have enough water for a hot day. The funny thing is, there were probably only 15,000 people there. If there were more, I can’t imagine what they would have done. They would have run out by the 4th inning. It’s no wonder that nobody wants to go to the games anymore. But it is sad. And it needs to change.

In the words of the protesters in front of Dodger Stadium on Saturday, “the sooner the better.”

The stadium sold out of water on a day that looked like this 15 minutes before game time...