After no-showing at a probate trial hearing involving the pending sale of the Clippers yesterday, Donald Sterling arrived in court this afternoon to testify. There are a handful of noteworthy items to pass along from some who are covering the trial today, and you can find them below:
- Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com (via Twitter) says that this case is scheduled through Thursday afternoon, and although there’s no guarantee that a ruling would be made by then, the judge clearly understands the time frame of the sale. As Linda Deutsch of the Associated Press notes, the NBA owners are expected to vote to approve Shelly Sterling’s agreement with Steve Ballmer on July 15th, which is also the day that Ballmer’s offer to buy the team is set to expire.
- Donald claims that he can get between $2.5 to $5 billion if he sold the Clippers, tweets Dan Woike of the Orange County Register.
Earlier updates:
- Donald had initially agreed to the sale of the team because he thought that the league would then waive the fine and lifetime ban levied against him, according to Shelburne and Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter links).
- Donald’s wife Shelly had been authorized to negotiate the sale because Donald thought that she would ultimately keep her portion of the team, tweets Shelburne.
- The NBA has no plans of rescinding Donald’s lifetime ban, tweets Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today.
- Another reason why Donald is fighting the sale is that he believes he can get the same deal that the Lakers got with Time Warner and radio stations, per Shelburne (via Twitter).
- Donald said that he was in the process of negotiating a TV deal with FOX at the time he was banned, says Shelburne (Twitter link).
I actually don’t get why
I actually don’t get why Sterlings are still getting all this attention just like how the McCourts when they already sold their teams. No point focusing on those terrible owners, when we can just look at the future with the new owners.