NBA Doesn’t Want Shelly Sterling to Keep Ownership of the LA Clippers

 

The Sterlings are on a PR campaign in a desperate attempt to retain ownership of the LA Clippers, but the NBA and its lawyers don’t seem fazed. The League says that despite Shelly Sterling’s legal claims, if (and when) Donald Sterling is voted out by the other 29 majority team owners, she’ll be out as well. Per the AP:

“I will fight that decision,” Shelly Sterling said. “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?

“I don’t know why I should be punished for what his actions were.”

NBA spokesman Mike Bass released a statement Sunday night in response to Shelly Sterling’s comments.

“Under the NBA constitution, if a controlling owner’s interest is terminated by a three-quarter vote, all other team owners’ interests are automatically terminated as well,” Bass said. “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.”

Shelly Sterling’s attorney, Pierce O’Donnell, responded to the NBA’s statement.

“We do not agree with the league’s self-serving interpretation of its constitution, its application to Shelly Sterling or its validity under these unique circumstances,” O’Donnell said. “We live in a nation of laws. California law and the United States Constitution trump any such interpretation.”

Shelly Sterling also said she “eventually” will divorce her husband, and that she hadn’t yet done so due to financial considerations.

“For the last 20 years, I’ve been seeing attorneys for a divorce,” she said. “In fact, I have here – I just filed – I was going to file the petition. I signed the petition for a divorce. And it came to almost being filed. And then, my financial adviser and my attorney said to me, ‘Not now.'”