The Donald Sterling saga simply will not end.
The Clippers’ owner filed a new lawsuit in Superior Court today, seeking damages from a whole gaggle of parties: the NBA, Adam Silver, his wife Shelly Sterling, and the Clippers organization as a whole. His argument is basically that he is the sole owner of the team, and they tried to force a sale without his permission.
As has been discussed ad nauseam, Shelly Sterling claims that she has the right to sell the team because her husband is no longer mentally competent enough to run the day-to-day affairs, and she had as much confirmed by two independent neurologists. On May 29, she agreed to sell the team to Microsoft billionaire Steve Ballmer for a staggering $2 billion, and the team has been a state of legal flux ever since.
One person not happy with this turmoil is head coach Doc Rivers. Rivers basically ran the franchise during the playoffs, overseeing every single decision while all the drama unfolded on television. He has reportedly told interim team CEO Dick Parsons several times that if Donald Sterling remains the owner of the team, Rivers will likely leave. Parsons made the following strong statement today from the witness stand:
“If Doc were to leave, that would be a disaster…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.”
And so the drama continues…
[via ESPN]
