Doesn't sound like Cuban agrees with kicking sterling out presently

[BballTim]

I also feel that on a social level that anyone who didn't vote for Obama is deep down someone who might not be an open racist but someone who holds tendencies.

  No offense, but that's a pretty idiotic comment. It's like saying that anyone who doesn't think Kevin Love is the best player in the nba is a racist. I don't see how anyone could realistically rate Obama's performance any higher than mediocre.

It is as understandable that someone might vote against for Obama for non-racist reasons as it is that someone could rate Obama as an above-average president.  I find both comments idiotic.

   Your comment is no better. I didn't say that I don't understand that someone could rate Obama as an above average president, just that I wouldn't agree with the assessment. Nice try though.

[wdleehi]

Steer away from the politics.  Find another way to make an example.

[D.o.s.]

Steer away from the politics.  Find another way to make an example.

That's not fair -- I think Obama really is doing the best he can with his limited athletic ability, and that award had nothing to do with race.

[LooseCannon]

I don't think any of the owners are comfortable with this.



They are setting a precedent where something you say can cost you your team. 



How comfortable do you think they are to opening that possibility?  Something you said could be used to force you to sell your business. 

I don't think the owners deserve to be entirely comfortable in whatever they do.

If it bothers them so much, they can vote to amend the league constitution to change how and when they can force out another owner.

[wdleehi]

I don't think any of the owners are comfortable with this.



They are setting a precedent where something you say can cost you your team. 



How comfortable do you think they are to opening that possibility?  Something you said could be used to force you to sell your business. 

I don't think the owners deserve to be entirely comfortable in whatever they do.

If it bothers them so much, they can vote to amend the league constitution to change how and when they can force out another owner.

If it bothered them that much, we would have never heard about this idea to begin with. 



Do you think the commish didn't talk to some if not all the owners before they presented this plan? 

[BballTim]

Steer away from the politics.  Find another way to make an example.

That's not fair -- I think Obama really is doing the best he can with his limited athletic ability, and that award had nothing to do with race.

  He's a decent athlete, but a terrible bowler.

[Endless Paradise]

You really think the players stand to lose more than the ownership in a player's strike over something like this? That's sort of laughable.

I find it laughable that you think the players stand to lose less.

The owners are financially well off to the point of not NEEDING the NBA to make their money. The same cannot be said of most NBA players.

A strike would 100% hurt the players more than the owners in the end.

The NBA owners stand much more to lose than the players when it comes to the health of the NBA. The players can find other leagues, which would welcome them with open arms. The owners would watch the NBA collapse, because they don't have a product without the best basketball players in the world. That's my point.

Exactly - do people not remember the lockout from a few years ago and how players were going overseas to play basketball?  NBA players are a commodity in any league; they're the best basketball players in the world.  Why exactly do you think a flameout like Stephon Marbury is a revered hero in China?

roffle @ the idea that the players stand to lose more than the owners

[Roy H.]

Exactly - do people not remember the lockout from a few years ago and how players were going overseas to play basketball?  NBA players are a commodity in any league; they're the best basketball players in the world.  Why exactly do you think a flameout like Stephon Marbury is a revered hero in China?

roffle @ the idea that the players stand to lose more than the owners

If that's the case, why did the players cave?  They gave back hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (billions, over the life of the deal) to the owners.  Why, if they were the ones with all of the leverage?

I don't think it's as clear-cut as you're making it out to be.

[D.o.s.]

Exactly - do people not remember the lockout from a few years ago and how players were going overseas to play basketball?  NBA players are a commodity in any league; they're the best basketball players in the world.  Why exactly do you think a flameout like Stephon Marbury is a revered hero in China?

roffle @ the idea that the players stand to lose more than the owners

If that's the case, why did the players cave?  They gave back hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue (billions, over the life of the deal) to the owners.  Why, if they were the ones with all of the leverage?

I don't think it's as clear-cut as you're making it out to be.

Probably owing to the egregious mismanagement of the negotiations by Billy Hunter that got him fired. You know, the screwups that have lead to this sort of legislation:
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10300106/judge-rules-billy-hunter-lawsuit-nbpa-continue

[D.o.s.]

Also, Sterling's selling the team through his wife:
http://deadspin.com/reports-donald-sterling-steps-aside-wife-to-sell-clip-1580631456

[Casperian]

I can't believe I'm going to defend Donald Sterling. 

So it's not a slippery slope, gravity is just pulling us down this remarkably slick, downward-curved surface at increasing velocity!

Even if the NBA didn't view it as a moral decision (and they've done everything to frame it as a moral decision), it doesn't mean it isn't one.  Whether the sheriff gives over his prisoner to the mob because he sympathizes with their case or because he's afraid for himself, the effect is the same: the mob is validated and empowered.

Whatever you think about Sterling the man, the way his team is being taken from him stinks of Orwell.  A private phone conversation recorded and leaked and a tabloid media holding him up for endless 2-minute hates. The endless piling on and self-righteous denunciations. The thrill of ganging up on a dying old ogre and trampling him. The suspicious glares trained on those who express misgivings - like Cuban.

The ends may have been a long time coming for Sterling, but the means are exposing something far more sinister.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it Orwellian, but it's pretty darn close. You and Cuban both deserve a TP.

Maybe this could interest you:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/

It's not just some truther-nonsense, I have the link from the FAZ, one of Germany's most conservative and respected newspapers.

So this private business organization has a duty to ignore the opinions of its customers and employees and their impact on their bottom line and publicly stand by Sterling, or it's like they're enabling a lynching?  And those same customers and employees are a "mob"?  We'll have to agree to disagree.

That's a strawman, and you know that. Is the bottom line of the NFL in danger because of the Redskins? Was the bottom line of the EPL in danger when one of their teams hired Paolo Di Canio, a known fascist, as their head coach? Is there even any projected number how much money precisely the NBA would stand to lose by having a known racist being exposed as a racist?

It's pretty much exactly like snively said, imo. 

Whether the sheriff gives over his prisoner to the mob because he sympathizes with their case or because he's afraid for himself, the effect is the same: the mob is validated and empowered.

The only reason why the NBA players threaten to strike is because they fall for the same mass hysteria which befalls every mob. It's pretty much the definition of what turns concerned citizens into "the mob". Your attempt to bring "the opinions of the NBA's customers and employees" into the mix is deliberately ignoring snively's point: the mass hysteria, which influenced these people's opinion in the first place.

He's free to say what he wants, and others are free to react how they want, and the NBA is free to favor the reaction of the majority of its sponsors, employees, and customers over Donald Sterling's wishes.

All true, and yet, the NBA has no right to take his private property away, they need an actual, legal reason for that.

As someone who has taken the time and actually listened to the whole 9:30 of Sterling's taped conversation, I have yet to hear which part of his statements exactly were against which law. Sure, he's a hypocritical racist, but that's nothing new. The witch-hunt which followed was certainly engineered, though. As far as I'm concerned, the Clippers are Sterling's private property, and the NBA has no right to take it away from him. I'm pretty sure he'll win that case in a fair court.

To me, the most interesting part of the whole conversation was the fact that a friend of Sterling apparently checked his girlfriend's instagram, saw her with Magic, and then called Sterling to inform him. What kind of racist multi-millionaire friend does that? What are the motivations? Sterling stated very clearly that he has no problem with "these people" (meaning black people, which, of course, is certainly racist in itself) time and time again, but that he fears what his "friends" think about the whole situation. Isn't the question who these friends are more important than whether or not a known racist made racist comments in a private conversation?

[fairweatherfan]

So this private business organization has a duty to ignore the opinions of its customers and employees and their impact on their bottom line and publicly stand by Sterling, or it's like they're enabling a lynching?  And those same customers and employees are a "mob"?  We'll have to agree to disagree.

That's a strawman, and you know that. Is the bottom line of the NFL in danger because of the Redskins? Was the bottom line of the EPL in danger when one of their teams hired Paolo Di Canio, a known fascist, as their head coach? Is there even any projected number how much money precisely the NBA would stand to lose by having a known racist being exposed as a racist?

It's pretty much exactly like snively said, imo. 

Whether the sheriff gives over his prisoner to the mob because he sympathizes with their case or because he's afraid for himself, the effect is the same: the mob is validated and empowered.

The only reason why the NBA players threaten to strike is because they fall for the same mass hysteria which befalls every mob. It's pretty much the definition of what turns concerned citizens into "the mob". Your attempt to bring "the opinions of the NBA's customers and employees" into the mix is deliberately ignoring snively's point: the mass hysteria, which influenced these people's opinion in the first place.

Again, I have a hard time buying the argument that suggesting a massive public uproar and threatened mid-playoff player and fan protests and boycotts would impact the league's finances is a "strawman", but comparing the uproar from customers and employees to a lynch mob is a valid and reasonable comparison. 

It's also difficult to see the logic that characterizes the response as "mass hysteria" but simultaneously argues that the mass hysteria wouldn't have impacted the league's bottom line.  Pretty tough to thread that needle in my opinion, but I'd be interesting in hearing more about it.  And that's without getting into the notion that the league's primarily African-American players somehow only had a problem with it due to outside opinion. 

Either way my beliefs don't really matter; what matters is if the league itself saw a threat to their brand and their business in Sterling's comments and their response.  If you sincerely want to argue that the league honestly didn't think this incident would affect them in any meaningful way but threw the book at Sterling anyway, be my guest, but that seems unlikely to the point of ludicrousness to me.

[D.o.s.]

All true, and yet, the NBA has no right to take his private property away, they need an actual, legal reason for that.

As someone who has taken the time and actually listened to the whole 9:30 of Sterling's taped conversation, I have yet to hear which part of his statements exactly were against which law. Sure, he's a hypocritical racist, but that's nothing new. The witch-hunt which followed was certainly engineered, though. As far as I'm concerned, the Clippers are Sterling's private property, and the NBA has no right to take it away from him. I'm pretty sure he'll win that case in a fair court.

That'd be true if the Clippers really were private property, rather than a licensed franchise of the NBA.

As far as I'm concerned, several of us really need to brush up on the differences.

[BballTim]

So this private business organization has a duty to ignore the opinions of its customers and employees and their impact on their bottom line and publicly stand by Sterling, or it's like they're enabling a lynching?  And those same customers and employees are a "mob"?  We'll have to agree to disagree.

That's a strawman, and you know that. Is the bottom line of the NFL in danger because of the Redskins? Was the bottom line of the EPL in danger when one of their teams hired Paolo Di Canio, a known fascist, as their head coach? Is there even any projected number how much money precisely the NBA would stand to lose by having a known racist being exposed as a racist?

It's pretty much exactly like snively said, imo. 

Whether the sheriff gives over his prisoner to the mob because he sympathizes with their case or because he's afraid for himself, the effect is the same: the mob is validated and empowered.

The only reason why the NBA players threaten to strike is because they fall for the same mass hysteria which befalls every mob. It's pretty much the definition of what turns concerned citizens into "the mob". Your attempt to bring "the opinions of the NBA's customers and employees" into the mix is deliberately ignoring snively's point: the mass hysteria, which influenced these people's opinion in the first place.

Again, I have a hard time buying the argument that suggesting a massive public uproar and threatened mid-playoff player and fan protests and boycotts would impact the league's finances is a "strawman", but comparing the uproar from customers and employees to a lynch mob is a valid and reasonable comparison. 

  I personally have a hard time taking the threatened player boycott seriously.

[Fafnir]

For a whole season, probably not.

But the Warriors/Clippers and Heat all sounded like if Silver didn't come down hard in that press conference they weren't going to play that playoff game. Once that happens things could have spiraled one way or the other.