As great as these NBA playoffs have been, two characters seem to keep finding ways to steal the show.
The first culprit?
Donald Sterling.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has been doing his best to sweep this mess under the rug as quickly as possible. In fact, he’s made greater strides to accomplish that than I think any of us could have originally anticipated. Less than a month later, the team is already in the process of being sold.
But not so fast.
Here comes Sterling, as defiant as ever. Yahoo Sports! Adrian Wojnarowski broke this news Friday afternoon:
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling plans to file a $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA, his lawyer confirmed to Yahoo Sports on Friday afternoon.
This defiant decision by Sterling comes just one day after his wife, Shelly Sterling, reached an agreement with former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to sell the Clippers for $2 billion.
$2 billion.
Donald Sterling is “looking … separately” at possible legal action to stop the team’s sale to Ballmer, Donald Sterling’s attorney, Max Blecher, told Yahoo Sports.
The purpose of the $1 billion lawsuit against the NBA, Blecher said, is to seek damages for Sterling’s lifetime ban and termination of ownership.
The NBA remains confident it has the legal grounds to stave off any lawsuits from Donald Sterling and install Ballmer as owner of the Clippers, league sources said.
It was likely that Sterling would fight this to the death, as his lawyer stated Thursday, after Silver banned him for life, fined him $2.5 million and vowed to terminate his ownership of the franchise.
So why was the team sold to Ballmer? Because Sterling authorized his wife to negotiate the sale of the team by signing a document produced by Shelly’s attorney’s. Shelly Sterling and Ballmer agreed to terms and signed the document on Thursday.
Unfortunately, this is likely to drag out through the rest of the NBA season.
The other culprit, though, may very well disappear into the offseason Friday night.
That would be Lance Stephenson of the Indiana Pacers.
Other than Sterling, he has been the talk of the NBA after his endless amount of childish antics in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Between the constant flopping, the pestering of LeBron James, the trash talk, the endless complaining to the refs, and the disturbance of Miami Heat huddles, Stephenson has quite possibly become the villain the the Heat need to put the Pacers away for good.
They’ll get their chance Friday night in Miami. Here’s more from Gregg Doyle:
Lance is all about Lance in a way that is breathtaking in its purity. Does he want to win? Sure he does. Lance can be all about Lance and still want the Indiana Pacers to win, because let’s be honest: Winning makes Lance look good. And so if blowing in LeBron James’ ear and leaning in to listen to Miami’s Erik Spoelstra coach his team and flopping all over the court and even, at one point, having to be dragged to his feet by Roy Hibbert will help the Pacers win, Lance will do it. And he did, all of that, in Game 5 against the Heat.
But ultimately Lance is going to take care of Lance, and if the Eastern Conference Finals suffer from his antics and if some great performances in this series get overshadowed, so be it.
Because Lance is going to Lance.
Like ESPN’s Jason Whitlock, Doyle does not believe the Pacers — or any smart organization for that matter — should pay Lance Stephenson the superstar money he will surely command this offseason when he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
Sure, his talent is unmistakeable and he is only getting better. He possesses a skill set similar to Russell Westbrook and not many other players in the NBA not named LeBron James can claim that. But Stephenson’s antics have internally worn on the Pacers and may have contributed to their late season collapse and lack of playoff cohesiveness:
Reports, signs and evidence have mounted into one big heaping mountain of Me First, which is what Lance should have tattooed on his right arm instead of the nickname already there, “Born Ready.”
Remember when Pacers center Roy Hibbert said earlier this season that there were “some selfish dudes in here?” According to ESPN.com, Hibbert was talking about Lance Stephenson. The report went a bit farther, noting not only that Stephenson had been on a Me First rampage since being left off the Eastern Conference All-Star team — starting a “personal vendetta” against Eastern coaches — but that Stephenson “has always had a habit of so-called ‘stealing rebounds,’ jumping in front of or over a teammate who had an uncontested rebound to get it for himself. This phenomenon reached a new level in the back half of the regular season. Hibbert … was often a victim in these friendly-fire rebounds.”
So I went back and looked at the timing. Hibbert made his “some selfish dudes in here” comment after the Pacers lost to the Wizards on March 28. Stephenson had a season-high 14 rebounds that night. Hibbert had two.
So that’s one piece of information. Guilt beyond reasonable doubt? No, not just from that. But add that tidbit to the fight Stephenson had with Evan Turner in practice, and to the time he and teammate George Hill had to be separated on the sideline during a loss to the Spurs, two bits of information that came out in April during the Pacers’ late-season slide. People in the organization were leaking information about the team’s chemistry issues. Both issues involved Lance Stephenson. Coincidence? Of course not.
The Pacers are most certainly more concerned with Lance on Friday rather than this offseason, for now. To have a chance to win Game 6 against a riled up Heat team — and crowd — they will need Good Lance to come to town. They will Lance to be calm, cool and efficient. He will need to pass the ball to make the right play, not just get his next assist.
Recent history says this is unlikely, though. The Pacers have not won consecutive games against the Heat in the last two seasons.
They soon may be trying to accomplish that next year.
Ben Baroff is a basketball journalist who blogs for SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter here.