The Clippers picked up a significant on-court victory Tuesday, beating the Warriors, but Adam Silver’s punishment of owner Donald Sterling is probably a significant off-court victory, too. The team would have become a pariah for players and agents, likely scuttling a squad that’s been building toward contention the past several years. Still, there’s no guarantee a key figure will be back, as we examine amid the latest on the Clippers:
- Doc Rivers on Tuesday night still wouldn’t commit to returning to the team next season, as Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports notes.
- There’s a strong chance that Sterling will sue the NBA on antitrust grounds, a source tells Michael McCann of SI.com, who outlines the legal ramifications of Silver’s decision.
- Silver spoke with Sterling before announcing the punishment, but neither Sterling nor anyone on his behalf gave the league assurances that he won’t sue, reports Ken Berger of CBSSports.com.
- Sterling will have the chance to defend himself in a hearing before the NBA’s Board of Governors before the owners vote to strip the team from him, as Berger writes in the same piece. TNT’s David Aldridge seconds that in a piece for NBA.com that also lays out the timeline for the NBA’s probable ouster of the Clippers owner.
- Rivers doubts that the Clippers can remain in the Sterling family, an idea that union vice president Roger Mason Jr. opposes, but Shelly Sterling, the wife of Donald Sterling, wants son-in-law Eric Miller to take over the team, Spears writes in a separate piece.