NEW YORK — The NBA, Shelly Sterling and the Sterling Family Trust today resolved their dispute over the ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers, the league announced.
Under the agreement, the Clippers will be sold to Steve Ballmer, pending approval by the NBA Board of Governors, and the NBA will withdraw its pending charge to terminate the Sterlings’ ownership of the team.
Because of the binding agreement to sell the team, the NBA termination hearing that had been scheduled for June 3 in New York City has now been cancelled.
Mrs. Sterling and the Trust also agreed not to sue the NBA and to indemnify the NBA against lawsuits from others, including from Donald Sterling.
This clears the way for the team to be sold to Ballmer at the stunning price of $2 billion — nearly four times the highest price previously paiud for a franchise, $550 million for the Milwaukee Bucks.
It made total sense to cancel the June 3 meeting unless the Vetting process and other business would be completed by June 3.
For the interest of the Clippers, it would benefit if Ballmer can be officially approved by the other owners, in time to name his new GM well before the late June draft and free agency. The process of approving a majority owner like Prokhorov took a couple of months, but with Ballmer having been previously been Vetted, this could easily be accelerated.
We really don’t want a former Chairman of Citigroup making draft night decisions (lol).
From SI:
“Earlier Friday, TMZ.com reported Donald Sterling had recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Sterling was diagnosed by doctors earlier this month, which led him to be declared “mentally incapacitated” – a determination that removed him from power of the Sterling family trust and, by extension, the Clippers. That left Shelly Sterling as the sole trustee of the family’s trust, a status which fully empowered her to sign a $2 billion agreement to sell the Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.”
So if Sterling suffers from Alzheimer’s and is mentally incapacitated, does that mean he can’t be a Racist, because he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Anyone who watched the Anderson Cooper interview should agree that Sterling didn’t have “all of his faculties” at the age of 80 years old. However, that may only mean that he no longer has a “filter on what comes out of his mouth” Many of the other owners such as Shelly Sterling may not be too far from Donald in thinking, but can control what they say (Its called common sense Political Correctness).
Of course Blecher/Donald are trying to have it both ways. Its to their advantage to want Shelly to do whatever is necessary to get team sold for 2B, ASAP, and to be able to use the excuse that Donald didn’t know what he was saying when he made racially insensitive remarks. However, Donald has to be well enough, to be able to file the Lawsuit, in order to put pressure on NBA to get some additional concessions. Its a fine line, but clearly Shelly and Donald (and their lawyers) are a “Good Cop”, “Bad Cop” team.
Is it any coincidence that the NBA canceled the Tuesday Board of Governors meeting right after the Blecher law suit was filed?
Both sides were playing Hard-Ball. Blecher made clear on Thursday’s Wolf Blitzer interview that he wanted the June 3rd meeting cancelled and to sit down with NBA to discuss (for example how to resolve the 2.5 M fine). Blecher was supposed to be on Wolf Blitzer again last night, but apparently was canceled at last moment. Maybe the NBA is trying to finally play nice and the lawyers are now sitting down to talk? They could easily agree to have the 2.5 M fine paid to a charity (it’s due by June 13). The NBA can formally issue a farewell statement with regard to the sale of team, and not mention Race, but rather thank Sterling for his 30+ years of service to the NBA.
Don’t be surprised if this behind the scenes discussion is in progress and Blecher drops the lawsuit in next couple of days.
Also not mentioned, is that had the Tuesday meeting been held, I doubt there would have been 22 owners willing to take a vote that might have jeopardized the $2 B sale. Owners were likely behind the scenes, trying to convince Silver to cancel the vote, which might have had political ramifications for those who didn’t vote as the Players wanted. Owners don’t really want to give players so much power, nor does the NBA.