Category: Golden State Warriors

by David Zizmor

LOS ANGELES–It’s most likely the NBA owners will vote to have Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling banned for the league for life and force him to sell the franchise. There is no question about that, Sterling he got caught red handed and there’s not much he could do about it.

Even in some of the statements from the last week he knows that he’s been caught, the most recent comment from Sterling was that he wished that he paid the woman (V.Stiviano) off. No one knows whether that means she was trying to black mail him with the recordings of him that she released.

Sterling is not denying what was in those recordings he’s admitting everyting that was said all those racist comments were his and that he essentially believed them and he hasn’t made any excuses about them. This is the thing Sterling has been a lousy owner for three decades, the racism is part of it also he’s been charged in the past with sexism.

Then there’s him being a bad owner it’s not him just being sexist, racist, he’s just an awful owner and an awful person by all accounts. This is a guy who when the Clippers season would end in early April every year because they never made the playoffs would fire his entire front office sales staff because he didn’t want to pay them for the four or five months until October until the season started again.

Sterling didn’t care that they needed to make ends meet, that they needed to pay their bills and the Clippers should have had people selling themselves to help make money for the team. This is a bad business practice that turned stupid. Were talking aobut a person who doesn’t care about other people beyond himself.

There was another story that another employee in the Clippers front office was suffering from cancer and needed a serious operation to get it taken care of except Sterling didn’t offer a health care plan and this man’s cancer treatment was not covered by whatever Sterling was offering.

Further Sterling wouldn’t give him anything so he could be treated and fortunately the players on the Clippers were quite generous and chipped in about $120,000 for this man to get his cancer treatment. This is Sterling people, this is a guy who wouldn’t even help one of his employees get treated for cancer. Ironically Sterling said he had prostate cancer himself this past week.

Daivd Zizmor covers the NBA for Sportsralk radio

By George Devine, Sr.

Tonight’s game between the Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors actually began when NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling was banned from the Association for life and would have to pay $2.5 million in fines. This came after a league investigation determined that Sterling indeed made racist comments recorded by a woman described as his girlfriend. With this morning’s press conference the Clippers were free to return to the series, tied at 2-2, without a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the team and the league as a whole.

Pretty much unencumbered by the recent controversy, the Clippers won by a 113-103 margin, gaining a 3-2 edge in the best-of-seven series. An advantage for them was the obvious enthusiasm of the hometown crowd at Staples Center in downtown L.A., sharing in the relief brought by a resolution of the Sterling situation. The outcome could have been very different: prior to the morning’s announcement by the commissioner, there were rumblings about players boycotting and fans turning their backs on the game. It didn’t happen, after the prompt action of the league.

At times, the game was closer than indicated by the final score. In the second period Golden State outscored Los Angeles 29-24. In the third, the teams tied at 22, and late in the frame a 3-pointer by Steph Curry gave the Warriors a short-lived lead, 70-69. But the persistence of the home team prevailed as Deandre Jordan led the attack with 25 points, 18 rebounds and 4 blocks. Chris Paul scored 20 and had 5 steals. Blake Griffin scored 18 and Darren Collison 15.

For the Warriors, three of the starters played for most of the game: Andre Iguodala played for 42:21, notching 18 points and 8 assists; Klay Thompson for 44:46 with 21 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists; Curry for 43:42 with 17 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists. David Lee scored 18, had 10 boards and 4 assists. Draymond Green had 10 points and 11 rebounds. Green, Lee and Thompson were all in foul trouble with 5 apiece.

The next game in the series is at Los Angeles, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. PDT on Thursday, May 1.

Note: When the Giants’ game against the San Diego Padres ended at AT&T Park, a goodly portion of the 40,000+ in attendance stayed in the ballpark to watch the conclusion of the game from Staples on the stadium JumboTron.

by Jerry Feitelberg

There have been suggestions of forcing Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell the team and even have the team move back to San Diego or move to Seattle to at least remove the stigma and reminder of any stain of Sterling once this gets settled. The Clippers who turned their warm up jerseys inside out before the start of game four on Sunday’s loss in Oakland out of protest of what Sterling said during a racist exchange with his girlfriend in a April 9th recording.

Further right after the game against the Warriors there was even talk that the Clippers might have packed it in or were lethargic in their effort in the 21 point 118-97 loss because the weight of the controversy weighed heavily on the team. There is also concern that the Clippers with all the publicity surrounding the Sterling controversy may now have trouble even getting out of this first round with the Warriors.

The distraction has impacted the Clippers play and L.A. couldn’t get off the ground since the opening tip on Sunday afternoon at the Coliseum Arena. The fans were riding the Clips more so than usual according to some fans and media who were at the game. The heckling never ceased and to have a game on the road right after the Sterling recordings couldn’t have been worse timing for a team trying to advance in the playoffs.

The loss now ties Los Angeles with Golden State at two a piece with game five going back to L.A. on Tuesday night. “It’s just us, only us we’re all we got” said the Clippers Chris Paul before the team ran out on the floor for the warm ups. The team also graced black wrist bands and black socks.

Ironically Sterling’s wife Rochelle was sitting courtside across from the Clippers bench and did speak with ESPN’s Lisa Salter and said,”I do not condone those statements that you heard. I do not believe them. I am not a racist. I have never been never will be. The team is the most important thing to my family” Meanwhile on local talk stations in Los Angeles there was talk that Clippers fans were going to make their own statement on Tuesday by wearing their Clippers Playoff t-shirts inside out in solidarity with the players in protest over the Sterling comments.

The latest addition of recordings were released regarding conversations between Sterling and his girlfriend V.Stiviano that were not initially released by TMZ but released by Deadspin on Sunday a transcript of that conversation regarding Stiviano telling Sterling that he owned an NBA team mostly made up of African American players:

Stiviano: “Honey, if it makes you happy I’ll move all the black people from Instgram”

Sterling: You said that before you said, ‘I understand’

Stiviano: “I did remove the people that were independently on my Instagram that are black”

Sterling: “Then why did you say that you didn’t. You just said you didn’t remove them.”

Stiviano: “I didn’t remove Matt Kemp and Magic Johnson, but I thought Matt Kemp is mixed and he was ok just like me, he’s whiter and lighter than me, I met his mother”

Sterling: “you think I’m a racist”

Stiviano: “I don’t think your a racist”

Sterling: “yes you do, yes you do”

Stiviano: “I think you, you”

Sterling: “evil heart”

Stiviano: “I don’t think so I think you have an amazing heart, honey, I think the people around you have a poison mind, and have a way of thinking”

Sterling: “it’s the world, you go to Israel the blacks are treated just like dogs”

Stiviano: “so do you have to treat them like that too?”

Sterling: “the white Jews and the black Jews, there’s white Jews and there’s black Jews do you understand”

Stiviano: “are the white Jews less than the black Jews”

Sterling: “150 percent”

Stiviano: “is that right?”

Sterling: “It isn’t a question, we don’t elevate what’s right and wrong, we live in a society we live in a culture. We have to live in that culture”

Stiviano: “Shouldn’t we take a stand for what’s wrong? And be the change difference?”

Sterling: “I don’t want to change the culture because it’s too big”

Stiviano: “you could change yourself”

Sterling “I don’t want to change the culture,because it’s too big, I don’t want to change, if my girl can’t do what I want, I don’t want the girl. I’ll find a girl that will do what I want! Believe me. I thought you were that girl, because I tried to do what you want, but your not that girl, because I tried to do what you want”

Stiviano: “There’s no need to get upset, no need to get”

Sterling: “I just see what I’m living with, what I’m dealing with”

Stiviano: “I’m sorry I didn’t do anything”

Sterling: “You never do anything and do anything wrong”

Stiviano: “But I didn’t do anything”

Sterling: “You upset me, and made me”

Stiviano: “I upset you? You made yourself upset”

Sterling: “No that’s not true, you didn’t start off by saying ‘honey I understand we’re living in a culture”

Stiviano: “because I don’t see your view, I wasn’t raised the way you were raised”

Sterling: “well then if you don’t feel don’t come to my games, Don’t bring black people, and don’t come”

Stiviano: “do you know you have a whole team that is black, that’s plays for you?”

Sterling: “you just, do I know? I support them I give them food, and clothes and cars, and houses. Who gives it to them? Does someone else give it to them? Do I know that I have, who makes the game? Do I make the game or do they make the game? There are 30 owners who create the league?

Stiviano: “I’m not going to bring any black people to the stadium?”

Sterling: “is it easy to say that”

Stiviano: “It’s very easy for you to say that”

Sterling: “It’s very easy for you to say that”

Stiviano: “I would never ask anyone to not bring someone based on race or color or culture, it’s like saying like ‘let’s just persecute and kill all the Jews’

Sterling: “oh it’s the same thing right”

Stiviano: “oh it’s isn’t wrong, wasn’t it wrong then? With the Holocaust? And your Jewish, you understand discrimination?”

Sterling: “Oh its the same thing right”

Former Clippers special assistant coach Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said he heard the recording and said, “I know him and I know his voice, I’m not surprised by this very much” and Stiviano’s lawyers said earlier Sunday that it is Sterling on the recordings.

The Warriors and Clippers continue this playoff series and there will be more after game five on Tuesday night

Jerry Feitelberg does sports commentary on http://www.sportsradioservice.com

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

By Jeremy Harness

On one hand, the Warriors nearly came back from an 18-point deficit but came up painfully short in Game 3 of this best-of-seven series.

On the other, however, the Los Angeles Clippers appeared to have gotten away with a pair of fouls that went the other way and made the biggest difference as the Warriors fell 98-96 at Oracle Arena Thursday night.

The Warriors struggled shooting the ball for most of the night, but they somehow managed to string together a run late in the fourth quarter to give themselves a great chance to pull out the win.

Stephen Curry hit a pair of highly-contested 3-pointers to bring the Warriors to within a point with 11 seconds left, and when Clippers guard Chris Paul made one of two from the free-throw line, the opportunity was there.

Curry, who scored 16 points to go along with 15 assists while the Clippers were bent on making him a passer, got a slight look at another 3-ball, and Paul shoved his forearm into Curry’s hip as he was in mid-air, which was not called and appeared to play greatly in the shot falling short and sending the Warriors to a 2-1 deficit in the series.

The Clippers also appeared to get away with another foul about 20 seconds earlier, as Blake Griffin, who had 32 points on Thursday on 15-of-25 shooting, drew a foul on Draymond Green, which turned out to be Green’s sixth.

Although Green was clearly moving his feet at the point of contact, Griffin pushed off to knock Green to the floor and draw the whistle.

Early on in the second half, however, it didn’t appear that this kind of finish was possible. The Warriors found themselves down by only three at halftime despite going 1-for-12 from 3-point territory in the first half.

As the Warriors continued to sputter on offense in the second half, the Clippers distanced themselves and eventually grew the lead to 18 points before the home team slowly began to make their charge.