by Daivd Zizmor

OAKLAND–Given Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s history this is not a surprising development and anyone who knows Sterling’s history as Sterling has had a number of instances with his off color comments and more importantly this is really of more substance than just an off handed comment. Sterling has been sued in the past and lost a number of court cases where he’s been accused of discriminating against his renters of the apartment units that he owns in the housing developments.

Sterling has been accused of and lost in court discrimination cases so if he said something like TMZ reported that he doesn’t want his girlfriend associating with African Americans that’s just a continuation of something that’s he’s been doing for ages. Sterling has shown this in his business practices that he doesn’t like African Americans that he discriminates against them and at least he has no problem doing it.

This whole matter is not a shock, it’s kind of a shock right now that Sterling’s team has become good again, it’s also kind of strange that with the number of African American players in the NBA that that he would say something like that. You have to wonder why anyone whose African American would want to play for him.

Knowing his particular opinions on race and his discrimitory past, the league is expected to come down hard on him over this latest incident, the simple fact is this is not a new development but this is a continuation of an old development it will interesting to see how this moves forward and this is really the first time this came to light in the information, twitter, and facebook age when this kind of information can get around like wild fire and go viral and really impact him.

He would have thought with some of the discrimination cases that he lost in the past that it will come back to haunt him. Soon it will be interesting to see what will happen to him soon. How this incident effects the Warriors and Clippers on Sunday it’s doubtful that it will have any impact. This circus around Sterling will spill over into the Clippers locker room but it’s doubtful at this stage.

The one thing that it might do is in this round of the playoffs against the Warriors if the Clippers end up winning this round it will probably solidify public perception of the team by making the opposing fans that much more vehement in their dislike for the Clippers and it might make the Warriors fans that much more vocal and louder as the Clippers are enemy number one because their affiliated with Sterling.

The morning practice at the Clippers was a zoo of media asking question regarding this story on Saturday and it’s expected to be the same way on Sunday at practice. Chris Paul and Blake Griffin who are the two most prominent African American players in the game and anybody who follows basketball knows that Sterling from time to time might have something to say that is discriminatory that is racist. Players like Paul and Griffin are going to be asked about it in practice and before the game will it be a distraction we’ll find out.

Warriors and Clippers tip off at 12:30pm at Oracle in Oakland for Game four on Sunday

David Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportstalk radio