“We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling’s views,” Silver said. “They simply have no place in the NBA.”
Sterling is immediately barred from attending any NBA games or practices, being present at any Clippers office or facility, or participating in any business or player personnel decisions involving the team.
He also cannot participate in any league business going forward.
“This league is far bigger than any one owner, any one coach and any one player,” Silver said.
The fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti-discrimination and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the NBA and the Players Association, Silver said.
After the announcement, the Clippers’ website had a simple message: “We are one,” it said.
“We wholeheartedly support and embrace the decision by the NBA and Commissioner Adam Silver today. Now the healing process begins,” the Clippers added in a statement released to the media.
Sterling’s comments were released over the weekend by TMZ and Deadspin, and numerous NBA owners and players have condemned them. Even President Barack Obama weighed in on the crisis.
The league’s investigation started Saturday and players immediately began expressing intense displeasure with the situation, even going so far as to ask Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson to get involved on behalf of the players’ union.
“When one rotten apple does something, or if you see cancer, you’ve got to cut it out really quickly,” Johnson said at a Los Angeles news conference that followed Silver’s announcement. He was flanked by NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and players such as Steve Nash, Tyson Chandler, Luke Walton and Roger Mason Jr., among others. “And Commissioner Silver did that in real time. We’re so proud and thankful for him.”
“When you get this many Lakers to stand up for the Clippers, you know something big is happening in L.A.,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said. “We are a single team here today, a team not only speaking out for what we’re against — racism, hatred, bigotry, intolerance — but what we’re for. We’re for great basketball.”
The announcement of the sanctions came just hours before the Clippers will play the Golden State Warriors in Game 5 of their Western Conference first-round playoff series. The series is tied 2-2.
Several sponsors either terminated or suspended their business dealings with the team on Monday, though individual deals that some of those companies have with Clippers stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will continue and were not affected. Still, it was a clear statement that companies, like just about everyone inside the league, were outraged.
The issues raised when the tapes were released over the weekend represent just another chapter in Sterling’s long history of being at the center of controversy.
In the past, he’s faced extensive federal charges of civil rights violations and racial discrimination in his business dealings, and some of his race-related statements would be described as shocking.
He has also been sued in the past for sexual harassment by former employees, and even the woman who goes by the name “V. Stiviano” — purportedly the female voice on the tapes at the center of this scandal — describes Sterling in court documents as a man “with a big toothy grin brandishing his sexual prowess in the faces of the Paparazzi and caring less what anyone else thought, the least of which, his own wife.”
Stiviano is being sued by Rochelle Sterling, who is seeking to reclaim at least $1.8 million in cash and gifts that her husband allegedly provided the woman.
