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Would you vote to take the Clippers from Donald Sterling?

Donald Sterling must sell his NBA team

  • Total voters
    56
  • Poll closed .
Bob Blaylock said:
A CEO is an employee of a company. There is certainly some basis on which to suggest that a CEO should be subject to some action, up to possibly even being fired, if he says or does something that is harmful to his employer.

Mr. Sterling is not an employee. He's an owner. The team in question is his property. Demanding that the owner of a business sell that business—in fact, making any demand at all regarding what the owner of a business may or must do with his business—is completely different than a business demanding anything of an employee.
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Doesn't matter. Part of his contract with the NBA is that any owner whose team is part of the NBA can be forced to sell...and it's this kind of situation that they needed this caveat in the contract...because if his words and actions would cost them millions of dollars, it only makes good economic sense to everyone involved. And it's not like Sterling's going to hurt.

If you'll think about it, it's not really that much different from owning a house in a development with an HOA - if you do something with that house that is against HOA rules, they can place a lien on it - and potentially take it from you, if you do not or cannot correct the discrepancy. It doesn't matter that you're the homeowner - you've done something that detracts from the value of the other houses in the development...and just as every owner of an NBA team has a legal duty to not do that which would potentially cost the other owners millions, you as that homeowner in that development have a legal duty to not do that which would potentially drive down the values of the other houses in that development.
 
CanadaJohn said:
This is very true, and let's also not forget that the league decided two years ago that Chris Paul could not be traded to the Los Angeles Lakers and forced the player into a trade that saw him go to that bastion of racism, the Clippers. And what did this black man do when he found himself banished to the Clippers, that bastion of racism, well he decided to sign a long term deal to play for Mr. Sterling, that most evil racist of all racists, apparently capable of destroying an entire league with a few comments.

So we have the league, apparently aware that Mr. Sterling has been an evil racist forever, and Chris Paul, a black man who can no doubt spot a racist miles away, both believing that Mr. Sterling's Clippers is a perfectly lovely place for a black basketball star to play.

This is nothing but a trumped up social media pile-on and it's pathetic.
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You know CJ, I was thinking about that trade or non-trade how ever you want to call. I have also heard on ESPN, from show like PTI and First Take that quite a lot of people know Sterling was a racist from a long time ago. Yet the commissioner intercedes and sends him Paul when Paul should have gone to the Lakers. Perhaps the NBA also needs a new commissioner for abetting and helping a racist.
 
Perotista said:
You know CJ, I was thinking about that trade or non-trade how ever you want to call. I have also heard on ESPN, from show like PTI and First Take that quite a lot of people know Sterling was a racist from a long time ago. Yet the commissioner intercedes and sends him Paul when Paul should have gone to the Lakers. Perhaps the NBA also needs a new commissioner.
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Well, it was the old commissioner who blocked the trade to the Lakers and there is attempts now to throw Stern under the bus as the reason why Sterling was allowed to survive so long, but it's the owners as a group that condone what the commissioner does, so there's no escaping the hypocrisy.
 
Grim17 said:
1. No
2. No
3. To my knowledge, no.



That seems to be the premise here... Unfortunately, we seem to be allowing political correctness to replace our rights and freedoms,
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I'm not an NBA fan and never have been. Although I love the college game. I think having his fellow owners vote on this is fair, but having said this I wonder how many will vote for his ouster only because they think they would be pilloried in the media? If I was an NBA owner now, any question asked of me would be answered with a "NO COMMENT." But the way I understand it, the league has it own rules and each owner agreed to abide by them.
 
Grim17 said:
FFS, I said "without fear of government or entrepreneurial reprisal."
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... And I'm telling you that freedom from entrepreneurial reprisal is not part of a person's freedom of speech rights. You don't have a natural right to speech free of other people using their property to discourage your speech. And it certainly isn't in the 1st amendment.
 
CanadaJohn said:
Well, it was the old commissioner who blocked the trade to the Lakers and there is attempts now to throw Stern under the bus as the reason why Sterling was allowed to survive so long, but it's the owners as a group that condone what the commissioner does, so there's no escaping the hypocrisy.
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You sure they don't hold public office?
 
Grim17 said:
The NBA Owners are going to vote on whether to force Donald Sterling to sell the LA Clippers because of the racist comments he made on that tape that was secretly recorded by his wife.

If you had a vote in that situation, would you vote "Yes" to force him to sell the team, or do you think he shouldn't be forced to see his team and vote "no".

After you vote, please explain your position.
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I vote no....while Sterling has not represented well, the commissioner is thuggish and no better an individual.... reason: see " Bill of Attainder " ( legal terminology )

Thom Paine
 
Dezaad said:
... And I'm telling you that freedom from entrepreneurial reprisal is not part of a person's freedom of speech rights. You don't have a natural right to speech free of other people using their property to discourage your speech. And it certainly isn't in the 1st amendment.
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Do we have property rights?

He owns that team, and he has done nothing to legally justify forcing him to sell that team.

Parsing words is fun to some people, but I'm not one of them.
 
Grim17 said:
Do we have property rights?

He owns that team, and he has done nothing to legally justify forcing him to sell that team.

Parsing words is fun to some people, but I'm not one of them.
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I believe he owns the franchise to the team in much the same way the owner of a Mc Donalds or Wendy's owns their restaurants. Their agreement can be severed for any reason.

EDIT:

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America, and is widely considered to be the premier men's professional basketball league in the world. It has thirty franchised member clubs (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada), and is an active member of USA Basketball (USAB)

National Basketball Association - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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a game is only as good as it's players are. And it is a fact that without the players the game is worth absolutely nothing. Sterling has brought is organization and the NBA into disrepute. For the future of both his team and the NBA as a whole, he should be ousted. But than the players and the owners have to realize that this is from this point on the norm to which all wayward behavior will be compared to. And both players and other owners have to know that they too should be equally harshly punished.
 
pbrauer said:
I believe he owns the franchise to the team in much the same way the owner of a Mc Donalds or Wendy's owns their restaurants. Their agreement can be severed for any reason.
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Was gonna post the same thing. The team is not real "property", its more like a franchise license and its governed by a complex NBA team owners' contract. When buying the team Sterling agreed to the contract and any limitations it may have, so if he didn't like them, he shouldn't have bought the NBA franchise.
 
Opteron said:
Was gonna post the same thing. The team is not real "property", its more like a franchise license and its governed by a complex NBA team owners' contract. When buying the team Sterling agreed to the contract and any limitations it may have, so if he didn't like them, he shouldn't have bought the NBA franchise.
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That's exactly right, I posted a short Wiki piece that indeed shows the teams are franchises. I find it funny that these conservatives pride themselves on business acumen don't know ****.
 
I have no clue how the NBA works. But if everyone who made racist and equally hurtful remarks about the "crazy old while man" had to pay a fine, we could reduce world hunger by 90%.
Its about time bigots stop pointing fingers at each other.
 
Grim17 said:
Do we have property rights?

He owns that team, and he has done nothing to legally justify forcing him to sell that team.

Parsing words is fun to some people, but I'm not one of them.
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He is under a contractual agreement with them, and under that agreement he does not have full control of his property. He need do nothing illegal for them to have the right to force his sale. This should be obvious to you, since they are indeed forcing the sale.

Part of the reason for this agreement is so that the organization can get rid of people who they deem in their sole discretion are not good representatives of the organization, and this is exactly the rights they are exercising. Since he agreed to these conditions, I am not sure how you are coming to the conclusion that his property rights are being violated. When he gave up his money (property) to obtain the team (new property) he agreed to cede certain aspects of control of his property in order to actually obtain the team, and now the other party is exercising their rights under that agreement. When you enter such agreements, what you are actually ceding are some of your property rights. He gave up those property rights to the other participants of the agreement. I didn't understand that you thought there was some kind of property rights violation here, but I don't see it.

I am not trying to parse words, I am truly trying to address whatever you might mean by your words.
 
I'm just hoping that the vote is not public. If it is, they'll be forced to vote against Sterling just to appease a bunch of soapboxing blacks. Privately, I think more are like Cuban, and not willing to punish excessively.
 
Glen Contrarian said:
Doesn't matter. Part of his contract with the NBA is that any owner whose team is part of the NBA can be forced to sell...and it's this kind of situation that they needed this caveat in the contract...because if his words and actions would cost them millions of dollars, it only makes good economic sense to everyone involved. And it's not like Sterling's going to hurt.

If you'll think about it, it's not really that much different from owning a house in a development with an HOA - if you do something with that house that is against HOA rules, they can place a lien on it - and potentially take it from you, if you do not or cannot correct the discrepancy. It doesn't matter that you're the homeowner - you've done something that detracts from the value of the other houses in the development...and just as every owner of an NBA team has a legal duty to not do that which would potentially cost the other owners millions, you as that homeowner in that development have a legal duty to not do that which would potentially drive down the values of the other houses in that development.
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I've seen several people make this point. What does this particular point matter one way or another? The people who say it seem to use it almost as a justification.
 
Given the continual embarrassment and complete lack of need of pro team "owners" (profiteers) in general, i would take all teams from their owners and give them to their respective cities.

So yes
 
It is not illegal to be an ignorant old fool, let the market serve punishment as it sees fit.

The team will suffer, which is unfortunate.
 
chromium said:
Given the continual embarrassment and complete lack of need of pro team "owners" (profiteers) in general, i would take all teams from their owners and give them to their respective cities.

So yes
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Wasn't aware that you were a Marxist-Leninist.
 
Wasn't sports to be fun at one time? What happened?
 
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