Donald Sterling Rumors | Hoops Rumors

And-Ones: Gay, Clippers, Monroe, Rogers

August 8th, 2014 at 6:48pm CST by Alex Lee

It’s been a rough week for Team USA following the gruesome injury sustained by Paul George and the subsequent withdrawal of Kevin Durant. However, help is on the way in the form of Kings forward Rudy Gay, writes Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Gay was a reserve on USA’s 2010 title squad and joins Chandler Parsons and Gordon Hayward this time around as the team’s only true small forwards. At tonight’s Hall of Fame ceremony, USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo told NBA.com’s David Aldridge that a repeat gold medal performance this summer would be the “sweetest win because of the circumstances.” (via Marc Stein on Twitter).

Here is what else is happening around the league on Friday night:

The official transfer of the Clippers could happen at any moment, as attorneys for Donald Sterling claimed in a request for a stay of a probate court decision that affirms Shelly Sterling’s right to sell the team to Steve Ballmer, reports Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times. The judge in the probate trial signed the final statement of decision Thursday, clearing the way for Donald Sterling to file the request, as Fenno explains. The sale may proceed once the judge issues a final order, which could come at any time, Fenno adds.
There is a very good likelihood that Greg Monroe is in a Pistons uniform next season according to David Mayo of MLive.com (via Twitter), who puts the chances at 85 to 90 percent. With the sign-and-trade market for Monroe now essentially non-existent, Mayo believes the sides will either come to an agreement on a longer-term deal or that Monroe will sign his one-year qualifying offer. Monroe would become an unrestricted free agent next summer if he chooses the latter route.
The Wizards have added Roy Rogers as an assistant coach, the team announced on their website today. Rogers has six years experience as an NBA assistant under his belt, previously working with the Nets (twice), the Celtics and the Pistons. Prior to reaching the NBA ranks, Rogers coached in the D-League for four years after a seven-year playing career. He joins fellow assistant David Atkins, hired in July, as a newcomer on the staff of head coach Randy Wittman.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

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.

Western Notes: Clippers, Henry, Grizzlies

July 29th, 2014 at 12:52pm CST by Chuck Myron

Attorneys for Donald Sterling plan to ask an appellate court for permission to appeal Monday’s probate court decision, even though the ruling doesn’t allow Sterling to seek a court order stopping the sale of the Clippers as he appeals, according to Brian Melley of The Associated Press. Dan Woike of the Orange County Register details three ways that Sterling can still prevent wife Shelly Sterling from completing the $2 billion sale of the Clippers to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Monday’s ruling left Donald Sterling unbowed, as his attorney Bobby Samini said to reporters, including Woike.

“His reaction was very calm,” Samini said. “He didn’t see this as the final battleground. This is one stage of a long war. This is one battle. We had hoped for a different result, but this is not the end.”

There’s more on the Sterling saga amid the latest from around the Western Conference:

Judge Michael Levanas accepted the contention of Shelly Sterling’s lawyers that it was unlikely that anyone would match Ballmer’s $2 billion bid for the Clippers, as Melley notes in his piece. “Ballmer paid an amazing price that cannot be explained by the market,” Levanas said.
Xavier Henry‘s one-year contract with the Lakers isn’t a minimum-salary arrangement, as first believed, and is instead worth the $1.082MM leftover portion of the team’s room exception, reports Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link). The other part of the room exception went to Ryan Kelly.
Joe Abadi, a lawyer for Grizzlies owner Robert Pera, conducted the team’s interviews with candidates for the front office job that Ed Stefanski will fill, sources tell Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Abadi has taken on a larger role in the organization while Pera has marginalized minority owners Stephen Kaplan and Daniel E. Straus, as Stein details.

Judge Rules In Favor Of Shelly Sterling

July 28th, 2014 at 5:20pm CST by Zachary Links

5:20pm: NBA Executive Vice President Mike Bass issued a statement on today’s ruling (via Jeff Zillgitt of USA Today Sports on Twitter):

“We are pleased that the court has affirmed Shelly Sterling’s right to sell the Los Angeles Clippers to Steve Ballmer. We look forward to the transaction closing as soon as possible.”

4:45pm: The judge in the trial between Donald and Shelly Sterling ruled in favor of the embattled owner’s wife today, saying she had “reasonable” belief Donald authorized her to sell the Clippers and that her testimony was “far and away” more credible than Donald’s, tweets Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times. Most importantly, the judge also made a ruling under 1310(b) of California Probate Code, according to Arash Markazi of ESPN Los Angeles (on Twitter), and that essentially makes the decision “appeal-proof“.

The move seemingly seals the deal for former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to officially complete his purchase of the Clippers. If this is indeed the end of the Sterling saga, it will be a great relief to the league office as well as many members of the Clippers. Matt Barnes was the latest Clipper to raise the specter of a boycott if Donald Sterling remains, as we noted earlier. Coach/president Doc Rivers and star guard Chris Paul were also among those who have been considering drastic measures if Sterling was not ousted by the start of the 2014/15 campaign.

Last week, Clippers interim CEO Dick Parsons testified that if Sterling stayed and Rivers were to leave, it would spell doom for the franchise.

“If Doc were to leave, that would be a disaster,” Parsons said, according to ESPNLosAngeles.com’s Ramona Shelburne. “Doc is the father figure of the team. Chris [Paul] is the on-court captain of the team. But Doc is really the guy who leads the effort. He’s the coach, the grown-up, he’s a man of character and ability — not just in a basketball sense, but in the ability to connect with people and gain their trust. The team believes in him and admires and loves him. If he were to bail, with all the other circumstances, it would accelerate the death spiral.”

Today’s clean sweep ruling should be the final step towards making Ballmer’s $2 billion purchase official, but Donald Sterling has a long history of dragging things out in court. The NBA certainly hopes that this will be the end of what has been a bizarre and ugly series of events for the league.

Pacific Notes: Thompson, Young, Clippers

July 28th, 2014 at 9:06am CST by Chuck Myron

Every coach in the Pacific Division next season will be in either his first or second season on the job. Presumably that group will include Byron Scott, who says he has just a few loose ends to tie up before he’s the next coach of the Lakers. Here’s more from the Pacific:

Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are confident that the Warriors aren’t looking to break up the “Splash Brothers” backcourt tandem with a trade that sends Thompson to the Wolves for Kevin Love, as the Golden State guards tell Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports. Thompson said new coach Steve Kerr gave him the “vibe” that he won’t be traded. Kerr is reportedly among the advocates within the team’s brass for keeping Thompson.
Nick Young says he feels like the Lakers made him a priority when they re-signed him to his new four-year deal, but he acknowledged he might not have ended up with the team had Carmelo Anthony decided to go to L.A., as he tells Dave McMenamin of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
Matt Barnes said it’s realistic that Clippers players would boycott if Donald Sterling remains the owner into next season, as he said in an appearance on The Chris Mannix Show on NBC Sports Radio (Facebook link; hat tip to USA Today’s Nina Mandell). Still, he acknowledged that with the process tied up in court, he just wants to see the NBA move “swiftly and abruptly” toward Sterling’s ouster. ““It’s tough,” he said. “I think you guys [the media] are like we are, we’re not exactly sure how far they can push it. We know where they stand and what they want. At the end of the day it comes down to legalities and business, stuff that has to be handled in a court of law. It’s a very touchy, very iffy situation. We’re about two months out from camp, and I think as it gets closer and as we get a better understand of what’s going to happen I think you will have a better idea of what we are going to do.”

Latest On Donald Sterling

July 22nd, 2014 at 10:32pm CST by Ryan Raroque

As the struggle between Donald Sterling and his wife Shelly regarding the sale of the Clippers continued in probate court today, we passed along earlier that Doc Rivers – according to the testimony of team interim CEO Dick Parsons – would no longer want to be part of the franchise if Donald remained as the team’s owner. Parsons also testified that while the Clippers have retained a majority of their sponsors throughout this ordeal, there are several of them who would only want to continue their business relationship with the team if Sterling is ousted, noted Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com.

There were a few more notable tidbits we’ve rounded up this evening, and you can find them below:

Pierce O’Donnell, a lawyer for Shelly Sterling, didn’t elaborate on the details of a meeting between Steve Ballmer, Donald, and a group of lawyers at Sterling’s Beverly Hills home on Monday. “Nothing really happened of any moment…It was pleasant. Mr. Sterling was a gentleman. But nothing came of it” (report from David Leon Moore of USA Today). Bobby Samini, an attorney for Donald, commented that he doesn’t expect a settlement to be reached.
Donald alleges corporate fraud in a lawsuit he filed today in Superior Court against his wife Shelly and the NBA, tweeted Shelburne. According to Donald’s lawyer, Bobby Samini, it could be years before a ruling is handed down, says Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles.com (Twitter links).
In a piece for ESPN Los Angeles, Shelburne and Markazi relay Samini’s statement regarding Donald’s new lawsuit, which alleges that Donald became the sole shareholder of the Clippers once he revoked the family trust. “The new lawsuit states the seller of the team is not Donald and it’s not Shelly — the seller of the team is corporation that owns the team, and that’s LAC Basketball Club Inc…When Donald bought the team, the shares of the corporation are only in Donald’s name. They were only issued to Donald, so Donald owns the shares of the corporation. He’s the sole shareholder. He put the shares up into the trust in 1989, and when we revoked the trust, the shares go back down to him.”
Bank of America expert Anwar Zakkour, who helped negotiate the team’s sale agreement between Shelly and Steve Ballmer, testified that “none of us believed we could get $2 billion” when the sale process began. Zakkour also said he heard Shelly mention the phrase “Plan B” when she had spoken with her attorneys (Twitter links via Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times).
According to Zakkour, the Clippers were initially valued between $1 billion and $1.3 billion, and that the $2 billion offer was “nirvana,” tweeted Shelburne.
Dean Bonham, testifying on Donald’s side, said that the Clippers could find another $2 billion bid to buy the team if the judge were to block the sale to Ballmer, noted Moore in the aforementioned USA Today report.

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: Jefferson, Spurs, Sterling

July 21st, 2014 at 9:56pm CST by Zachary Links

One year after joining the Hornets (née Bobcats) as a free agent, Al Jefferson is happy with the moves the club has made this summer, writes Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders. “We just need to continue to build off of what we what we did last year,” Jefferson said. “We know that if we play defense and focus on defense, we will have a chance to win. That’s one of the things that I did last year that I’ve never done before, just really buying in to the defensive end. I believe us finishing sixth in the NBA in defense was the reason why we had the success we had. We just have to continue to build off that.” More from around the NBA..

The Spurs didn’t just win the championship, they won the offseason too, writes J.A. Adande of ESPN.com. The Spurs didn’t make the most eye-grabbing move of the summer – the Cavs, of course, grabbed that honor – but they did retain four key components of their title run: Tim Duncan, coach Gregg Popovich, Patrick Mills, and Boris Diaw.
Embattled Clippers owner Donald Sterling met with Steve Ballmer and Shelly Sterling, sources tell Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com. No settlement was reached, but the two men had what a source described as a “friendly” conversation about the pending sale. This was the first face-to-face meeting between the two men since the sale, which Sterling continues to fight in court.
A couple of NBA scouts told Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter) that they’d love to see URI rising sophomore E.C. Matthews at the Adidas Nations camp. Matthews averaged 14.2 PPG, 4.2 RPG, and 2.3 APG in 32.5 minutes per contest last season under coach Dan Hurley.

And-Ones: Love, Wiggins, Sterlings, Durant

July 21st, 2014 at 1:59pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Cavs aren’t dangling Andrew Wiggins in trade talks with the Wolves about Kevin Love, at least for the time being, a source tells Bob Finnan of The News-Herald, who was the first to report last week that Cleveland was open to the idea of parting with Wiggins. So, while no one involved would guarantee Finnan that Wiggins wouldn’t wind up in a Love deal, it sounds like that idea is on the backburner for now. Here’s more from around the Association:

Testimony has resumed today in the probate trial between Clippers owners Donald and Shelly Sterling after the judge made a pair of decisions Friday that appear to help Shelly Sterling’s case, as USA Today’s David Leon Moore details. The judge has the power to allow Shelly Sterling to go forward with her sale of the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, if he rules in her favor, even if Donald Sterling decides to appeal, according to Moore.
A member of the players association’s executive committee told TNT’s David Aldridge that the union will discuss the idea of taking action should the Sterlings continue to own the Clippers at the start of next season, as Aldridge writes in his Morning Tip column for NBA.com.
Thunder assistant coach Brian Keefe, whom Knicks head coach Derek Fisher has reportedly lured to serve as a Knicks assistant, was the member of the Oklahoma City staff whom Kevin Durant trusted the most, Aldridge notes in the same piece.
A source tells Frank Isola of the New York Daily News that Knicks GM Steve Mills recently pulled his name from contention for the union’s executive director vacancy. Mills re-emerged as a candidate this spring after having been the apparent front-runner last summer prior to taking the Knicks job.
The final two seasons of the four-year contract between Devin Harris and the Mavs are a little more lucrative than previously reported. He’ll make nearly $4.728MM in year three and nearly $4.903MM in the final season, which is partially guaranteed for almost $1.34MM, as Mark Deeks of ShamSports details on his Mavs salary page.

Western Notes: Williams, Scott, Clippers

July 16th, 2014 at 8:10pm CST by Cray Allred

While the Eastern Conference might be in for some major re-shuffling next season, the contenders in the West are all fighting to maintain or improve their positioning for the 2014/15 playoffs. Here’s a rundown from the Western Conference:

The Mavs are still hoping to land a point guard, namely Mo Williams, tweets Dwain Price of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Dallas wasn’t overly optimistic the veteran would choose them over other what other teams could offer as of yesterday. Jeff Caplan of NBA.com tweets that Williams does have offers on the table exceeding the $2.73MM Dallas can offer from their room exception.
Caplan writes in a separate piece that Dallas could be a contender this season thanks to the reduced salary Dirk Nowitzki accepted to stay with the Mavs, which gave the team flexibility to add Chandler Parsons, among other moves.
As expected, the Lakers meeting with coaching candidate Byron Scott passed without a contract offer, reports Mark Medina of Los Angeles Daily News (Twitter links). Medina says that Los Angeles plans to fill out more of their roster before following up with Scott, and that no timetable is clear at this point.
The Clippers are largely done with their offseason moves, as coach and president of basketball operations Doc Rivers tells Eric Patten of Clippers.com. Rivers added that the club had begun researching guards during the latter part of this past season in anticipation of the departure of Darren Collison.
Commissioner Adam Silver and Shelly Sterling have talked about reducing Donald Sterling’s lifetime ban, and Silver said Tuesday that he’d be willing to listen to more discussion of the idea if Donald agreed to sell the Clippers, according to Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). Silver also said Tuesday that it’s possible, given Donald’s legal challenges to the league’s attempt to force him out, that he will continue to own the team at the start of next season, according to Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports.

Chuck Myron and Ryan Raroque contributed to this post.