(SportsNetwork.com) – Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling may go down without a fight after all.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, the NBA initiated a formal charge to end Sterling’s ownership of the team he bought in 1981 and reports Friday indicate that the embattled owner will allow his wife, Shelly, to negotiate a sale.<\/p>\n
ESPN said Shelly Sterling and her lawyers have already begun talks with the NBA about a sale, and celebrity gossip website TMZ.com cited sources as saying Donald Sterling made the decision because he believes the NBA will eventually force him to sell.<\/p>\n
Sterling has until May 27 to respond to the charge. Under the NBA constitution, he also has the right to make a presentation at a special meeting of the Board of Governors planned for June 3.<\/p>\n
In a statement released through league spokesman Mike Bass, the NBA affirmed its intention to proceed with its course of action in spite of the reports.<\/p>\n
“We continue to follow the process set forth in the NBA Constitution regarding termination of the current ownership interests in the Los Angeles Clippers and are proceeding toward a hearing on this matter on June 3,” Bass stated.<\/p>\n
NBA commissioner Adam Silver last month banned Donald Sterling for life and fined him $2.5 million over racist comments the Clippers owner made that were recorded by his girlfriend and posted online.<\/p>\n
Silver also said April 29 he would urge the other owners to force Sterling to sell the team. The NBA says its constitution provides grounds to terminate Sterling’s ownership.<\/p>\n
Sterling had reportedly threatened to sue the NBA and said he would not pay the fine, claiming through a lawyer that he has done nothing wrong and his punishment is unwarranted.<\/p>\n
Audio of Sterling urging his girlfriend not to bring African-Americans to Clippers games and disparaging Magic Johnson was first published by TMZ. Deadspin.com later posted a longer clip.<\/p>\n
The comments sent shockwaves through the league, leading to a protest from Clippers players, who dropped warmup jackets at midcourt before a playoff game and practiced with their shirts turned inside-out to hide the team’s logo.<\/p>\n
Sterling told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he “is not a racist” and “made a terrible, terrible mistake,” but also took further shots at Johnson, saying the Hall-of- Fame former Lakers star doesn’t do enough for the black community.<\/p>\n
The Clippers lost to Oklahoma City in the Western Conference semifinals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(SportsNetwork.com) – Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling may go down without a fight after all. Earlier this week, the NBA initiated a formal charge to end Sterling’s ownership of the team he bought in 1981 and reports Friday indicate that the embattled owner will allow his wife, Shelly, to negotiate a sale. ESPN said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[38,21,37],"class_list":["post-19069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-clippers","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-clippers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19095,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19069\/revisions\/19095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}