2:22pm: Shelly Sterling is arranging for a continued association with the team in some capacity other than as owner as she negotiates with the bidders, according to Shelburne. The ESPN scribe also reports that Magic Johnson is not a part of the Ellison-Geffen-Winfrey bid at present (Twitter links).
1:36pm: A source tells Ronald Grover of Reuters that Ballmer has not submitted a bid, while Grover also hears that the value of the Ellison-Geffen-Winfrey group bid is more than $1.5 billion.
12:28pm: Shelly Sterling has let bidders for the Clippers know that she intends to sell 100% of the Clippers, tweets Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com. That would seemingly satisfy one of the league’s conditions for allowing her to conduct the sale of the club, but Donald Sterling intends to put up resistance. Attorney Maxwell Blecher, one of Donald Sterling’s lawyers, tells Shelburne that the banned owner changed his mind and doesn’t want to sell the team after deciding last week to let his wife do so (Twitter link). Blecher tells James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times that if Donald Sterling were to agree to sell the club, he’d want the NBA to drop its allegations against him and perhaps make additional concessions.
Some bidders are concerned in the wake of Donald Sterling’s renewed fight that he’s just trying to gauge the market price of the team for use in a lawsuit against the NBA, Shelburne hears. Still, Blecher informed Shelburne that Donald Sterling hasn’t decided whether he wants to sue the league (Twitter links).
Three groups have already submitted initial bids to Shelly Sterling, as Rainey details. A consortium that includes Los Angeles investors Antony Ressler, Bruce Karsh and Grant Hill has bid $1.2 billion. People within the league see the group as viable, and Ressler is reportedly a longtime friend of Donald Sterling. Another bid comes from Todd Boehly and Mark Walter of the Guggenheim Partners and includes Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and luminaries David Geffen and Oprah Winfrey. Magic Johnson would presumably be aligned with that group, though Rainey makes no mention of the one-time Lakers star. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer mounted a bid of his own, and it’s worth $1.8 billion, according to Mike Ozanian of Forbes.com.
A couple of other groups received extensions on a Wednesday deadline, so more bids are expected today, and negotiations will persist this weekend toward Shelly Sterling’s goal of having a deal in place or reasonably close by Monday, Shelburne reports (Twitter links). The NBA’s Board of Governors will hold a hearing on the Sterling matter Tuesday, and the meeting is set to end with a vote on whether to strip ownership from both of the Sterlings. It remains to be seen whether the league will approve any sale that Shelly Sterling presents to them or just how Donald Sterling’s interference will affect the proceedings.