Baylor: Sterling is Running a ‘Southern Plantantion-Type Structure

So THAT’S why Sterling never wanted to pay his players in the offseason…

keepin em poor and black? is that why the only players he truly paid for were duke players? *think about it…dunleavy, brand, maggette….ALL DUKE PLAYERS, all of em were the bigger contracts that the clips signed. duke is either white, or very well versed african american. not to generalize, but just going off my view of this possible racial tension in LAC

Honestly, given how loyal the Clips were to Elgin, this seems like a low-blow on his part. Dude was an amazing player, but he sucked as a GM. 3 playoff appearances in 20+ seasons? Employing him for all that time was really loyal (and financially and strategically dumb) of the Clippers. To repay that by suing them seems really low-class.

Wow.

Read this somewhere else on the net earlier today (asian timezone) and i was shocked to see he had only been earning 230k year after year. For the ridiculous salaries guys like Zen Meister etc. get (yeah yeah, sure he’s a proven winner, still).. 230k is just ridiculous!

This whole story needs to be put to rest. The clips suck, elgin sucks and they are making a “shammockery” of the league. Case closed. god bless you all, and the poor black kids.

Elgin’s legacy is safe, just because Ginuwine is named after him.

And nobody find it weird that Elgin Baylor was getting paid $230,000 despite the fact that the average GMs salary was in the millions?
Granted, Elgin had to put up with this behavior, but some black folks are willing to debase themselves. Clarence Thomas, Condi, Michael Steele….
All y’all who automatically dismiss the racial factor are idiots who probably have no idea about Sterling’s past history. None.
But, that’s ok, that’s how life goes.

he took the job knowing sterling was a tight fist
and he kept getting all the 1st rounders and losing them. then 22 years later he is mad.
sterling did hava problem with minorities
living in his cribs/slumlord apartments,
so are you suprised elgin , did the lakers treat you that bad, that you sunk everything into the clippers and now they don’t know your name.. sucks to make 300,000 a year and not have a say so.
give me that job id even wash the players cars

No wonder the Clippers suuuuuuuuuck. But seriously, I agree with Allenp, where there is smoke there’s fire.

…especially if he dont even want black people to live in his appartments…

…especially since baylor did a terrible job over the years…

You know, lost of white people employed quite a few black people on plantations.
I guess that means racism is a total myth.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Rikson
So you figured you were going to make a comment and nobody was going to say anything?
Have you been here before?

You keep putting words in my mouth! I have no problem with you answering my comments…

Ah, so Elgin’s longevity, even though he was getting paid far less than the industry standard, means that Sterling couldn’t have been a racist.
So, Donald Sterling, a well-known cheapskate who regularly made it impossible for his GM to do business because of his reluctance to spend money on re-signing talented players, must have kept Elgin Baylor around because he liked him.
It couldn’t be because Elgin was one of the few people willing to tolerate the working conditions. After all, I’m sure there were DOZENS of black general managers when Elgin got his job two decades ago…
Wait, you mean there weren’t? You mean Elgin was a trailblazer and for years the NBA has struggled to hire African Americans in front office positions? You mean Elgin might have been willing to put up with piss poor working condiditons because he thought it was important to have a black person in that sort of job? You mean black people actually work for people they know are racists because they see it as a part of a larger purpose?
Who knew?

Rikson
Baylor said there was a “plantation-type mentality.”
Do you know what that means?
It does not automatically mean slavery. Black people and white people worked on plantations long after slavery ended.
Sharecroppers, tenant farmers, even domestics, all had to deal with “plantation mentalities.” Black people in corporate America have dealt with the same thing.
YOur job title does not insure you aren’t working for a racist. Whoever told you that lied to you.

He was paid $350,000

Dear Elgin: If things were so bad, why’d you stay for 22 freakin’ years? Oh, I know, you were bound in shackles. Shame to, Baylor was a great baller.

I mean, right or wrong, the entire lawsuit is flawed. Referring to a southern plantation makes me think of paying low for black workers then making them feel without worth so they don’t go anywhere else. That’s pretty much the OPPOSITE of the Clipper’s MO… although, once again, paying Baylor only 350,000 dollars is pretty insane.

Allenp: Are you serious? You’re comparing white people hiring blacks on back-breaking plantations for almost nothing, to the Clippers signing black players to play basketball for MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF DOLLARS?
Shut up!

Donald Sterling pays me to follow him around while playing the flute. I’m dead on the inside.

FIRE STERLING! HIM AND THE KNICKS OWNERS NEED TO TAKE A VACATION TOGETHER

This is just a case about an ALL-AROUND farce.

Evidence shows Sterling is a racist. His apartment housing fiasco shows this, we don’t need to observe his treatment of Elgin Baylor. However, there’s no denying it: Baylor was SEVERELY underpaid. Regardless of whether or not he did a good job, he still put the work in. Does that entitle him to the SAME as what other GMs make? No. But does it entitle him to a competitive base wage? Yes.

However, Baylor was a terrible GM. Period. Yes, he was handcuffed by a cheapskate owner. That would have been a valid excuse for not being a year-in, year-out contender. But truth is, the Clippers weren’t just bad, they were consistently TERRIBLE. We have no reason to believe Baylor wouldn’t have been another Isiah Thomas in NYC or for the Lakers because he never demonstrated any aptitude to make that happen.

Furthermore, Baylor was also a bad head coach before taking the job. He hadn’t demonstrated any capacity for the job and didn’t demonstrate anything while doing the job to indicate he deserved to KEEP the job. It’s not like Sterling took this wonderful prodigy exec and screwed him up; he never demonstrated that skill to begin with. Which makes you think that Sterling liked having a less competent black employee around to pay less. Says nothing good about Baylor, says nothing good about Sterling.

In summation, Elgin Baylor can sue for on-the-job discrimination but not discrimination for being fired. GMs are fired all the time at far far far younger with far more accomplished on a regular basis. But Sterling remains a racist cheapskate who wouldn’t buy another 8 bars of soap to keep his team clean in the shower if he thought it ran him overbudget. I hope the judge and jury say: “Donald, you’re a racist bastard that shouldn’t own anything and Elgin, you should be grateful that you had a job as an NBA exec for 22 years.”

i think both sides have valid points. i’m wondering what Khalid thinks about this though.