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Clippers, Doc Rivers To Talk Extension

August 12th, 2014 at 2:41pm CST by Chuck Myron

Doc Rivers and the Clippers are expected to begin negotiation soon toward an extension, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. Rivers and new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who formally assumed control of the team today, have been anxious to forge a long-term working relationship, Wojnarowski writes.

Rivers, who serves in a dual capacity as coach and executive, has two seasons left on the three-year, $21MM pact he signed when the Clippers and Celtics worked out a deal that let him out of his contract with Boston. The 52-year-old had assumed control of Clippers player personnel when he joined the team last summer, but this June the club changed his title from Senior VP of basketball operations to president of basketball operations.

The notion of extension talks is an about-face from rumors that cast Rivers’ future with the team in doubt. Rivers publicly shepherded the team through the early days of the Sterling saga this spring, but weeks passed before he would definitely say that he had no plans to leave. Yet the specter of Rivers’ potential departure resurfaced last month during the probate trial to determine whether Shelly Sterling had the authority to agree to strike a deal to sell the team to Ballmer. Clippers CEO Dick Parsons testified that Rivers had told him he didn’t think he would remain with the team if Donald Sterling continued to own it.

Western Notes: Cuban, Pleiss, Sterling

August 3rd, 2014 at 8:54am CST by Eddie Scarito

In the wake of Paul George‘s terrible injury Friday night, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban blasted the IOC, writes Eddie Sefko of the Dallas Morning News. Cuban hopes the injury will spur the NBA into creating its own international tournament where the league has more control as well as receives the benefits of holding such competitions. Cuban also said, “I think it’s a bigger issue than star players. We are being taken advantage of by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and to a lesser extent FIBA (International Federal Basketball Association). We take on an inordinate amount of financial risk for little, if any, quantifiable gain. It’s like our guiding principle is to lose money on every game and make it up in volume. There is no logic to our position. (We) just hope we get value somewhere in the future.”

Here’s more from out west:

Thunder 2010 draft-and-stash pick Tibor Pleiss is expected to sign a two-year deal with Barcelona, reports Emiliano Carchia of Sportando. Oklahoma City had made an attempt to bring the German big man to the NBA this season but his buyout amount became an issue, but the team was still hoping to work out a deal for the 2015/16 campaign. Details of Pleiss’ potential deal with Barcelona and buyout amount haven’t yet been announced.
Sam Cassell is leaving the Wizards to join Doc Rivers‘ coaching staff with the Clippers, reports Michael Lee of The Washington Post. Los Angeles’ bench had recently lost Tyronn Lue to the Cavs and Alvin Gentry to the Warriors.
Donald Sterling built an empire but words were his undoing, write Nathan Fenno, Kim Christensen, and James Rainey of The Los Angeles Times. The trio profile the seemingly soon-to-be former Clippers owner’s rise and fall.

Chris Paul Mulling Boycott If Sterling Stays

July 24th, 2014 at 11:19pm CST by Charlie Adams

Chris Paul called the notion of Donald Sterling staying on as owner “unacceptable” and told Jeff Goodman of ESPN.com that he would seriously consider sitting out the 2014/15 season if Sterling remained at the head of the Clippers franchise.

“That’s something me and [coach Doc Rivers] are both talking about,” said Paul on Thursday, in reference to a potential boycott. “Something has to happen, and something needs to happen soon — sooner rather than later.”

News broke Tuesday that Rivers indicated to interim CEO Dick Parsons that he’d potentially relinquish his role as coach and president of basketball operations if Sterling wasn’t ousted from his the front office. Now, Paul is publicly echoing Rivers’ thoughts and also suggested that a group of other players from the team are on the same wavelength as well.

“We’re all going to talk about it,” Paul explained to Goodman. “We’re all definitely going to talk about it. Doc, [Blake Griffin], [DeAndre Jordan]. It’s unacceptable.“

Closing arguments for the Sterling trial are set for Monday, at which point the judge will determine whether or not Shelly Sterling’s sale of the team without her husband’s consent was within the realm of legality. Should Donald Sterling keep his position as owner, and if Rivers, Paul, and company follow through on their threat to boycott, it would be an unprecedented move by the group that throws the state of the Clippers’ 2014/15 season seriously into question.

Doc Rivers Wants Out If Donald Sterling Stays

July 22nd, 2014 at 5:04pm CST by Chuck Myron

5:04pm: Parsons emphasized that he’d “try” to convince Rivers and the players to go through with this season if Sterling remained as the team owner, tweets Markazi.

4:47pm: Doc Rivers has told Clippers CEO Dick Parsons that he doesn’t think he’d want to continue as coach of the team if Donald Sterling were to remain as owner, as Parsons said today under oath during testimony in the Sterling probate trial, tweets Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Presumably that also applies to Rivers’ role in charge of the team’s player personnel as president of basketball operations. His departure would have the club in a “death spiral,” Parsons testified, according to Markazi (on Twitter).

“If Doc were to leave that would be a disaster,” Parsons said on the stand, as Markazi tweets. “Doc is the guy that leads the effort.”

Parsons, whom the league appointed in May to serve as a caretaker for the Clippers, also expressed concern that players would seek to leave the team, Markazi notes (Twitter link). The league has pursued a variety of avenues to wrest the team from Sterling, whom commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life this spring after a recording of racially charged statements emerged. Sterling has nonetheless lingered as he pursues legal action against the league and resists the sale of the team.

The trial is taking place to determine whether Shelly Sterling had the right to take control of the Sterling family trust that legally owns the Clippers and negotiate a deal to sell the team to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The $2 billion that Ballmer agreed to put up for the franchise would be tough to match should the judge rule that Shelly Sterling acted outside of her rights, as Parsons testified, according to Markazi (Twitter link).

“In my opinion its going to be tough to get this price again,” Parsons said in testimony. “If Steve goes away I don’t know how you get to this number again.”

Rivers took weeks during the immediate wake of the Sterling scandal to dismiss the notion that he’d walk away from the Clippers, finally saying that he had no plans to leave and pointing to the two years remaining on his contract. Still, the possibility of next season starting with Donald Sterling in place as owner of the Clippers is one that Silver wouldn’t dismiss in remarks last week.

And-Ones: Clippers, Afflalo, Duncan

June 24th, 2014 at 11:27pm CST by Ryan Raroque

The Clippers engaged the Magic in discussions about trading for Arron Afflalo this past spring, but were rebuffed after Orlando didn’t find L.A.’s trade offers enticing enough, reports Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com. However, there was some sense that the two clubs could later re-visit talks if they managed to get a third team involved in discussions. The Clips have been eyeing Afflalo for quite some time and came close to landing the former UCLA shooting guard last summer, according to Shelburne, who also mentions that Donald Sterling eventually nixed the negotiations.

You can find more of tonight’s miscellaneous news and notes below:

Spurs icon Tim Duncan revealed on “The Late Show with David Letterman” that he had briefly considered retirement shortly after winning his fifth NBA championship. “I thought about calling it a career…But I felt I could at least do one more year. I felt I was still effective. I felt I could still play and help the team” (transcription via Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News).
Some NBA executives believe that the Cavaliers’ reported interest in Jabari Parker could just be a smokescreen to get other teams to ante up their trade offers for the No. 1 pick, tweets Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated. Among those teams is the Jazz, who are said to covet Parker if they acquired the top pick.
Both Howard Eisley and Brian Scalabrine are candidates to become assistant coaches for Doc Rivers, according to Brad Turner of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter links). Eisley has been serving as a players skills coach for the Clippers, while Scalabrine spent the latter portion of last season as a coach for the Warriors’ D-League affiliate.
Timberwolves president/head coach Flip Saunders said he’s in contact with other NBA teams on a daily basis, but was coy when specifically asked if those discussions involved Kevin Love, writes Andy Greder of the Pioneer Press. As Greder points out, Saunders said he’s comfortable with the current roster, including Love. “I don’t know about the prospects of us trading anybody by Thursday night…I feel comfortable with the guys that we have. If we can get something that makes our team better, we’ll do it. If we don’t, we’ll stay pat and move forward and enter into free agency on July 1.”

Clippers Hire Dave Wohl As GM

June 16th, 2014 at 5:44pm CST by Zachary Links

The Clippers have reorganized their front office, pushing Gary Sacks out of his position as General Manager, according to Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today (Twitter links). Dave Wohl, a longtime league exec and assistant coach, will take over as GM with Sacks being bumped down to assistant GM.

In other changes, Doc Rivers has ascended from senior VP of basketball operations to president of basketball operations. Kevin Eastman, an assistant on Rivers’ staff, will move into the VP of basketball ops role. Rivers has had final say on personnel say on personnel matters since he was hired last summer in his coach/executive role and while it’s not explicitly outlined in the press release, that will presumably stay the same.

“I am extremely excited to work closely with Kevin, Dave and Gary in their new roles as we continue to move the culture of the Clippers forward,” Rivers said in the press release. “Our goals are not only to become a championship team, but a championship organization as well. I feel with the new structure of the Basketball Operations Department, we have taken a positive step in that direction.”

Wohl becomes General Manager of the Clippers after working as the team’s Director of Professional Scouting last season. Wohl has more than four decades of NBA experience under his belt, including a stint as an assistant coach for the Wolves from 2009-2011 and serving as the Assistant GM of the Celtics from 2007-2009. He has also worked in various capacities for Orlando, Miami, Sacramento and the Lakers in addition to serving as the head coach of the Nets from 1985-1988.

Pacific Rumors: Rivers, Sterling, Kerr, Hoiberg

May 16th, 2014 at 3:02pm CST by Chuck Myron

Doc Rivers hadn’t ruled out leaving the Clippers in the weeks after questioning whether he’d be back with the team next season amid the Sterling maelstrom, but he finally shut the door on that possibility Thursday. Rivers said he has no plans to go anywhere, pointing to his contract, which runs two more seasons, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports tweets.

Donald Sterling’s threat that he won’t pay his $2.5MM fine is immaterial, since the NBA would simply take it out of the television rights money the league distributes to teams, as Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com points out (on Twitter).
Some Warriors players are withholding welcomes for new coach Steve Kerr out of support for the ousted Mark Jackson, and one Warriors player suggests race played a factor in the coaching change, as he tells Bleacher Report’s Ric Bucher.
The Warriors had talks with Iowa State coach Fred Hoiberg before hiring Kerr, but there was no formal interview or offer from the team, reports Tim Kawakami of the Bay Area News Group. Kerr and Stan Van Gundy were the top two candidates, with Hoiberg and Lionel Hollins waiting on the next tier, Kawakami believes (All Twitter links).
Kerr’s base salary is $22MM, with incentives that could take the pay on his five-year deal up to the $25MM figure that’s been previously reported, a source tells Marc Berman of the New York Post.
The Kings will attempt to trade for a second-round pick, tweets Jason Jones of The Sacramento Bee.
A Kings representative who spoke with Jones mentioned Zach LaVine as a draft prospect he liked, though the team official cautioned that the lottery could change the landscape (Twitter link).

Clippers Rumors: Free Agency, Rivers, Sterling

May 12th, 2014 at 10:22am CST by Chuck Myron

A prominent agent told Sean Deveney of The Sporting News that he has clients who don’t intend to sign with the Clippers this summer unless Donald Sterling is “gone completely.” That indicates the Sterling saga will indeed have an effect on free agency, as there’s almost no chance the situation will be resolved by July, as Deveney points out.

“I don’t think the whole thing winds up with Sterling back in charge, that is just hard to imagine,” another agent told Deveney. “There’s the chance, though. There’s a chance you wind up working for Sterling. That’s the problem.”

Here’s more from a team that fought off the Thunder and a media circus to overcome a 22-point deficit in Sunday’s win:

People around the league feel as though Doc Rivers won’t leave the Clippers even if the league hasn’t completely severed its ties with Sterling by this summer, Deveney writes in the same piece. Rivers hasn’t said definitively that he’ll return to the team for next season after raising questions about his future shortly after the Sterling fiasco began.
The league believes it can strip Shelly Sterling’s ownership of the team when it does so with her husband, as we passed along last night, though Shelly Sterling intends to fight that interpretation, as she told ABC’s Barbara Walters. “To be honest with you, I’m wondering if a wife of one of the owners, and there’s 30 owners, did something like that, said those racial slurs, would they oust the husband?” Shelly Sterling said. “Or would they leave the husband in?”
Pierce O’Donnell, the attorney for Shelly Sterling, cited the U.S. Constitution in his rebuttal to the league’s contention that it can take the team from her. Legal experts have emphasized to Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News that the Constitution doesn’t apply to businesses like the NBA, and lawyers make it clear that such a defense is flimsy, Medina adds (Twitter links).
Shelly Sterling also told Walters that she’s been speaking to attorneys for the last 20 years about a divorce, which could further complicate the league’s efforts to remove the Sterlings.
Donald Sterling attempted to explain his racially charged remarks and asked the league’s forgiveness in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

Clippers/Sterling Rumors: Thursday

May 8th, 2014 at 9:18pm CST by Chuck Myron

Commissioner Adam Silver could scarcely have been more resolute in his press conference last week to ban Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life, but It doesn’t appear as though final resolution to the saga will be so straightforward. Here’s more on the battle for the Clippers involving Sterling and wife Shelly Sterling.

Shelly Sterling does not want to become the managing owner of the Clippers, but is hoping to maintain her 50% share and passive role while a new buyer replaces her husband’s active role, a person close to her camp tells Brent Schrotenboer of USA Today.
Schrotenboer’s source said that Sterling is in talks with the league, but didn’t give an indication of whether the NBA is agreeable to such a scenario.
Sterling’s attorney released a two page statement further detailing Sterling’s claim of rights to continue owning the team, per Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter link).
In the statement, the attorney denied that legal proceedings from Shelly Sterling’s past are fair grounds on which to judge the co-owner, Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com passes on (Twitter links).

Earlier updates:

The Sterling family trust in control of the Clippers indeed lays out a 50-50 ownership split between Donald and Shelly Sterling, Medina tweets.
Rivers reiterated that it wouldn’t be ideal for Shelly Sterling to own the team going forward, as Mark Medina of the Los Angeles Daily News notes (Twitter links). “That would be a difficult situation for everybody because of the relationship,” Rivers said. “I guarantee every person wouldn’t be on board with that. Whether I would or not, I’m not going to say.”
Shelly Sterling’s lawyer tells Tami Abdollah of The Associated Press that she “will not agree to a forced or involuntary seizure of her interest” in the team, which is a 50% share, Abdollah writes. Attorney Pierce O’Donnell said Shelly Sterling is considering divorce from Donald Sterling, and he claims they’ve been separated for the past year. O’Donnell also said that Shelly Sterling “abhors” her husband’s racial comments and believes that Silver “exonerated” her last week when he said that no decision had been made regarding any claim to ownership from the family of Donald Sterling. O’Donnell added that he spoke with the NBA on Thursday, and that Shelly Sterling still plans to attend Friday’s game against the Thunder.
A recording of a phone conversation allegedly involving Donald Sterling gives further indication that he’ll fight the NBA’s efforts to strip him of Clippers ownership, as Dylan Howard and Melissa Cronin of RadarOnline.com report. Howard and Cronin claim possession of an affidavit confirming that Sterling was part of the conversation. “You can’t force someone to sell property in America!” Sterling is to have said, according to the report. “I’m a lawyer, that’s my opinion.”
Doc Rivers and the Clippers had no indication that Shelly Sterling would try to keep the team, tweets Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com. Markazi points to a comment Rivers made last week in which the coach asserted that it didn’t sound as if she could own the team going forward and that “I think she knows that,” Rivers said. (Twitter link).
Shelly Sterling asked Rivers’ permission to attend Game 5 against the Warriors, then attended Game 7 against the team’s wishes, Markazi points out, adding that the team wants nothing to do with her as “co-owner” of the club (Twitter links). Rivers and other Clippers department heads are jointly running the team in the absence of president Andy Roeser, who’s on indefinite leave, while the NBA searches for a new CEO.
We passed along the latest on Shelly Sterling’s push to control the Clippers earlier today.

Western Notes: Sterling, Owners, Lakers

May 2nd, 2014 at 10:32pm CST by Eddie Scarito

Donald Sterling has kept a low profile since NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned him for life and fined him $2.5MM on Tuesday. Sterling broke his silence in an interview with DuJour.com, saying, “I wish I had just paid her [V. Stiviano] off.” Stiviano, in an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, characterized Sterling’s current state of mind as “confused,” adding, “I think he feels very alone, not truly supported by those around him. Tormented, emotionally traumatized” (link via ESPN.com).