Disgraced Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has finally found a legal battle he is unwilling to wage.
Banned for life by the NBA following published racist remarks, Sterling has decided to allow his wife, Shelly, negotiate a forced sale of the team with the league, according to published reports.
This comes from Ramona Shelburne, the Clippers’ beat writer for ESPNLosAngeles.com:
Shelly Sterling and her lawyers have been negotiating with the NBA since her husband was banned for life by commissioner Adam Silver on April 29. While the league has yet to formally accept this arrangement, sources said if she is willing to sell the team in its entirety, this could bring a startlingly quick end to what appeared to be a protracted legal battle.
When NBA commissioner Adam Silver first brought down the hammer on Sterling, it was anticipated that the sale of the Clippers could take months or even years, given Sterling’s highly litigious background. Sterling even said as much in interviews, claiming he did nothing wrong and would sue to keep the team he has owned since 1981.
Sterling had until Tuesday to respond to the league’s action to end his ownership. A hearing has been set for June 3, with a vote from the Board of Governors – anticipated to be 29-0 in favor of removing Sterling – coming thereafter.
NBA spokesman Mike Bass had a typical nothing comment, laying out the already laid-out timeline but saying nothing about the reported progress.
“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,” he said in a statement.
That was supposed to trigger the anticipated long legal battle. But today’s news creates a potential win-win for Silver and the NBA, which could have Sterling removed in a matter of weeks, bringing a tidy end to a very messy situation.
Regardless of the duration of the removal of Sterling, what remains unavoidable is the financial windfall he and his wife will enjoy from the sale of the team. Published estimates value the Clippers at $1 billion or perhaps more. Given the 
arrival of coach Doc Rivers, the pairing of superstars Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, the best regular season in team history and the recent slide of the rival Lakers, the value of the Clippers is at an all-time high.
There has been no shortage of people supposedly interested in buying the Clippers. Our Jan Hubbard has a terrific suggestion.
Sterling bought the Clippers in 1981 for $12.7 million. If the team is sold to a new owner for $1 billion, Sterling’s profit of roughly $987 million is subject to a capital gains tax of 33 percent.
It was believed Sterling wanted to transfer controlling interest to a family member, which would avoid the capital gains tax while having the team revaluated, creating a smaller profit margin – and thus a smaller capital gains tax – the next time the team was sold. But there aren’t any dummies at the Olympic Tower, and the NBA was not going to allow him to do that.
Shelly Sterling is an alternate governor of the Clippers. It is not known whether she intends to sell the Clippers in their entirety. According to the ESPN report, that is the only way the NBA would accept the agreement between Sterling and his wife.
Wow, this pst is pleasant, my sisster iis analyzing
these kinds of things, sso I amm going to tell her.
Have a look att my weblog; Metal Slug gratis
It’s a pity yyou don’t hage a donate button! I’d most certainly donate to this
superb blog! I suppose foor now i’ll settrle for book-marking andd adding your
RSS feed to my Google account. I look forwatd to fresh
updates and wioll takk about this website wioth my Facebook group.
Talk soon!
Here is my bllog post Dream League game
I was expecting a compromise agreement all along. Donald may be dying from cancer (if it spread outside his prostate), and didn’t have much reason to keep team at his age. He wanted Shelly to have team.
This is a win for the owners too. Many (Cuban, Vos) were believed to be uncomfortable with taking away one’s private property over an illegally taped conversion, said in the privacy of one’s home, that they didn’t believe in their heart. (Progressives feel the same way, except only when it applies to them). It would have set a bad precedence. The additional evidence of a coverup, however, insured that Sterling would have lost in the end, but the NBA would have lost too, if there was a long battle with an Anti-Trust lawyer, who has beaten the NFL before. Had the owners taken over control of the Clippers (as they did with New Orleans Jazz), they probably would have tried to sell to some Diverse group, as quickly as possible, and therefore at a lower price.
Even an owner like Brooklyn’s Prokhorov should be happy if now the value of the Clippers could be set at over 1 billion, therefore increasing the value of his own team.
With Shelly in control of the sale, she could make sure that someone like Magic Johnson doesn’t become an owner and demand that the new owner doesn’t change the name of the team. There was some discussion on Wolf Blitzer, that once this is agreed to, Shelly can renege or delay and keep team for herself, since the NBA has nothing against her.
(They are probably working on careful wording so that doesn’t happen).