(AllHipHop News) Last night (May 11th), Shelley Sterling stated she intended to fight any NBA sale of the Los Angeles Clippers during her first interview since her husband’s racist comments surfaced. A day prior to Mrs. Sterling’s interview, Lebron James gave a declarative statement announcing that the NBA players want EVERY member of the Sterling family out of the Clippers’ organization.
Shelley Sterling has owned the Los Angeles Clippers with her husband Donald Sterling since his purchase of the team back in 1981. When NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling from the NBA he explicitly stated that his punishment of Mr. Sterling would not effect Sterling’s family members. On ABC World News, Mrs. Sterling implied that the NBA’s attempt at forcing her to sell the Clippers for her husband’s statements had sexist undertones:
I will fight that decision. To be honest with you, I’m wondering if a wife of one of the owners, and there’s 30 owners, did something like that, said those racial slurs, would they oust the husband? Or would they leave the husband in?
Hours before her interview, the NBA released a statement addressing the complicated nature of the sale. According to the NBA, their constitution does not discriminate punishment when one owner is banned:
Under the NBA constitution, if a controlling owner’s interest is terminated by a 3/4 vote, all other team owners’ interests are automatically terminated as well.It doesn’t matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team.
Lebron James also spoke on Mrs. Sterling’s attempt at keeping the Clippers’ team in the Sterling family this past Saturday (May 10th). Speaking for the NBA players, James claims removing all members of the Sterling family would be the “what’s right”:
As players, we want what’s right and we don’t feel like no one in his family should be able to own the team