NEW YORK (AP) — Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling
has been banned for life by the NBA in response to racist comments the
league says he made in a recorded conversation.
Commissioner Adam
Silver said he will try to force the controversial owner to sell his
franchise. Sterling has also been fined $2.5 million, and Silver made no
effort to hide his outrage over the comments.
He said a league
investigation found that the league’s longest-tenured owner was in fact
the person on the audiotapes that were released over the weekend.
"We stand together in condemning Mr. Sterling’s views," Silver said. "They simply have no
place in the NBA."
Sterling acknowledged he was the man on the tape, Silver said.
Sterling
is immediately barred from attending any NBA games or practices, be
present at any Clippers office or facility, or participate in any
business or player personnel decisions involving the team.
He also cannot participate in any league business going forward.
"This league is far bigger than any one owner, any one coach and any one player," Silver said.

The
fine will be donated to organizations dedicated to anti-discrimination
and tolerance efforts that will be jointly selected by the NBA and the
Players Association, Silver said.
Sterling’s comments were
released over the weekend by TMZ and Deadspin, and numerous NBA owners
and players have condemned them. Even President Barack Obama weighed in
on the crisis, the first of Silver’s brief tenure as commissioner.
Before
Silver took the podium, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tweeted out a
photo of the NBA Constitution, saying "It exists for a reason."
The
announcement of the sanctions came just hours before the Clippers will
play Golden State in Game 5 of a knotted-up Western Conference
first-round playoff series.
Several sponsors either terminated or
suspended their business dealings with the team on Monday, though
individual deals that some of those companies have with Clippers stars
like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin will continue and were not affected.
Still, it was a clear statement that companies, like just about everyone
inside the league, were outraged.
The issues raised when the
tapes were released over the weekend represent just another chapter in
Sterling’s long history of being at the center of controversy.
In
the past, he’s faced extensive federal charges of civil rights
violations and racial discrimination in his business dealings, and some
of his race-related statements would be described as shocking.
He
has also been sued in the past for sexual harassment by former
employees, and even the woman who goes by the name "V. Stiviano" —
purportedly the female voice on the tapes at the center of this scandal —
describes Sterling in court documents as a man "with a big toothy grin
brandishing his sexual prowess in the faces of the Paparazzi and caring
less what anyone else thought, the least of which, his own wife."
Stiviano
is being sued by Rochelle Sterling, who is seeking to reclaim at least
$1.8 million in cash and gifts that her husband allegedly provided the
woman.
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