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Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Yeah it's definitely pretty odd that of all the incredibly racist stuff Sterling has said/done that this is the one that did him in. I gotta imagine if this were say 2002 and not 2014 where social media dominates so much, that this might not even have rated. It's amazing this is what brought him down. Kinda like getting Al Capone on tax evasion.
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The last straw is often pulled from the least likely of haystacks
Quote:
Originally Posted by octothorp
Yeah, it's a totally different era. Different makeup of other owners, where media-savvy tech billionaires, international investors, and media conglomerates make up a significant voice of the ownership group... not that all of these people have great ethics, but they are much more PR conscious. As well, the fact that players themselves have such strong voices as a result of social media would make it much more difficult for the NBA to control a story the way they might have 15 years ago. As well, it was important for Silver to differentiate himself from Stern, and it's difficult to say whether Stern would have chosen the stiffest punishment possible.
Regardless of the reasons, it's great that he's on his way out, although I still shake my head at how much money he'll make by simply holding onto the franchise and putting the absolute minimum into it.
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And Sterling would probably still have another chance to be a jerk if he'd been caught on tape talking about tenants rather than attendees.
The achievement Sterling is most proud of is that he has never sold anything (his fortune was built through real estate - parking lots and garages, apartments, luxury apartments, etc.). He also made Mike Dunleavy sue him to pay the balance of what he was owed on his contract after they fired him. As a result, I would wager that any attempt to force him to sell the franchise is not resolved until he is dead.