OTL: NBA lax in Sterling oversight
— -- LOS ANGELES -- As disgraced Clippers owner Donald Sterling remained holed up in his Beverly Hills mansion in recent weeks while pledging to keep fighting for his team, the NBA's newly hired unit of high-powered investigators and lawyers worked feverishly to solidify his ouster.
The strategic decisions from the league office, its public relations statements and its investigative tactics came fast and furious since Sterling's racist rant became public. Yet the NBA's interest in Sterling's alleged misdeeds hardly existed prior to the racist recordings released by TMZ.
Over the past several weeks, ESPN's "Outside the Lines" conducted dozens of interviews and reviewed thousands of pages of documents involving Donald Sterling and his wife, Shelly. Through all of the alleged Sterling transgressions, racist statements and actions, boorish sexual behavior and discriminatory practices that cropped up over the past three decades during his tenure as the Clippers' owner, league officials appear to have never asked any questions of those involved. And though some of the cases were wrapped in confidentiality deals, a trove of details could have been found had league officials attempted to glean them, in addition to being able to land interviews with key participants, "Outside the Lines" has learned. Sterling also has been caught in conflicting testimony under oath, according to various depositions read and viewed by "Outside the Lines."
The one instance the league did show an interest in an alleged Sterling misdeed, however, came in 1996 in a case involving Sterling and a real estate employee of his who also did work for his Los Angeles Clippers: The league's insurance company became involved in a sexual harassment case against him, the alleged victim's attorney told "Outside the Lines."
Until last month, all of Sterling's behavior occurred during the just completed three-decade reign of NBA commissioner David Stern. For the past 22 years, current commissioner Adam Silver worked in the league office as an apprentice to and adviser to Stern.
When ESPN the Magazine first chronicled eye-opening racial and sexual allegations against Sterling in rich detail in a 2009 story, league officials had little to say. Asked to provide the league's position on various allegations against Sterling, an NBA spokesman told ESPN's Peter Keating: "It would be premature to have any real take on it."
Silver, in his first major press conference as commissioner, briefly and publicly revisited two of the cases last month while levying a lifetime ban and $2.5 million fine against Sterling, saying: "He's never been suspended or fined by the league because while there have been well-documented rumors and cases filed, he was sued and the plaintiff lost the lawsuit. That was [former Clippers GM] Elgin Baylor. There was a case brought by the Department of Justice in which ultimately Donald Sterling settled and there was no finding of guilt and those are the only cases that have been brought to our attention. When those two litigations were brought, they were followed closely by the league."
But those were not the only two cases tied to Sterling that were public, and Silver didn't mention the 1996 sexual harassment case against Sterling that is alleged to have involved the league's insurance firm.
The NBA constitution does not require the commissioner's office to investigate alleged wrongdoing by a team owner but does give the commissioner "the right to investigate all charges, accusations, or other matters that may adversely affect" the NBA. Shawn Klein, a professor of philosophy at Rockford University who blogs as "The Sports Ethicist," said league officials can be in a difficult spot when it comes to policing team owners about non-league-related issues.
"There is a fuzzy line there between how far they ought to be going in looking into the businesses of their owners," he said. "At some point they have to draw a line. That line may change now due to public perceptions and calls for more vigilance on the part of leagues of their owners.
"The NBA probably didn't think they had to look at things that were not connected to NBA-related business. Whether there is an obligation to do that is an important question."
Mike Bass, a league spokesman, responded to separate calls made by "Outside the Lines" to the league office, where Stern remains a consultant, as well as Stern's personal New York office, saying "Neither commissioner Silver nor former commissioner Stern will have a comment on the story."
Sterling, a personal injury/divorce lawyer by trade, and his wife also declined interview requests for this story.
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