Donald Sterling in CNN exclusive: Clippers will play if I am still owner
Donald Sterling in CNN exclusive: Clippers will play if I am still owner
Source: CNN
14th May, 2014
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling says he thinks that if he is able to keep his team, he won't have to worry about an NBA players strike next season.
"That's talk, the media
pushes that," he tells "Anderson Cooper 360" Wednesday night in the
second part of an exclusive interview with the banned owner. "Why would
they do that? If they get their salaries, they're going to play."
The idea of a league-wide
walkout gained traction for a few hours Wednesday when the vice
president of the National Basketball Players Association, Roger Mason
Jr., told a Showtime cable network show that LeBron James might lead a
walkout if Donald Sterling is still the controlling owner of the
franchise when the new season begins in the fall.
But another member of the
organization and James' teammate in Miami, James Jones, told the New
York Daily News that the strike talk is old news and was discussed
before Commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling from the league for life
and fined him $2.5 million. Sterling also prompted the owners to begin
the process of forcing the Sterling family trust to sell the team.
James, in an exclusive interview with Rachel Nichols of CNN and TNT, said players are pleased with the league office.
"The direction Adam is
going and the NBA is going, there shouldn't be a need for (a strike),"
he told Nichols. "We trust those guys, and we know that they're going to
take care of what needs to be done for our league, and we understand
that it's not going to be tomorrow."
An NBA advisory committee is still discussing the matter of a forced sale and no vote has been taken.
Sterling, an 80-year old lawyer and billionaire real estate investor, tells Cooper that people have the wrong impression of him.
"What am I, a
Frankenstein? What am I, some kind of an ogre?" he asked. "I'm a good
person, I'm a warm person. I say hello to everybody who comes to the
team."
Sterling, who told
Cooper in Monday's portion of the interview that he is still loved by
the players and fans, wonders why people turned on him so quickly.
"One day, they all love
you, and the next day, you make a mistake and say something, and
suddenly they hate you -- is that the way it is? " he says in part two
on Wednesday. "What if a player said, 'I don't like working for that
Jew.' What would we do?
"I wouldn't do anything.
I would ask him, 'Why? Why?' I want to make you happy. If you want more
money, more attention, more love?"
Sterling's explosive CNN
interview, the first part of which aired Monday night, was the first
time he had spoken publicly since audio recordings surfaced last month
of him making racist remarks. Reaction to the recorded remarks came fast
and furiously.
Magic Johnson,
who became an involuntary figure in the controversy after Sterling
named him in the leaked recording and trashed him in Monday's interview,
responded on Tuesday. The basketball Hall of Famer and five-time NBA
champion told Cooper that Sterling's anger was misplaced.
"What's really sad is,
it's not about me," Johnson said. "This is about the woman you love
outing you and taping you and putting your conversation out here for
everybody to know. ... This is between you two, but then he wants to
include me."
Johnson said he doesn't
think Sterling understands what a big mistake the Clippers owner's
racist comments were or the number of people who were offended by the
first remarks -- and by Sterling's second set of statements slamming
Johnson again.
"What kind of a guy goes
to every city, has sex with every girl, then he catches HIV? Is that
someone we want to respect and tell our kids about?" Sterling asked
Cooper in Monday's interview. "I think he should be ashamed of himself. I
think he should go into the background. But what does he do for the
black people? He doesn't do anything."
In response, Johnson
defended his charitable work and business investments, saying Sterling
should have done his homework before making the comments.
"My whole life is
devoted to urban America. So, you know I just wish he knew the facts
when he's talking," Johnson told Cooper. "But he's a man who's upset and
he's reaching. He's reaching. He's trying to find something that he can
grab on to help him save his team. And it's not going to happen."
Johnson said Sterling
disrespected the work he's done, like helping coffee shops, gyms and
theaters open in urban areas. "That really makes me upset. And then my
competitive spirit comes out, because I've done all this great work. All
the kids we've sent to college, and I've got 150 kids on scholarship
right now."
He also responded to Sterling's HIV remarks, saying he never tried to hide the diagnosis when he retired from the NBA in 1991.
"I came out like a man,
you know, I told the world. I didn't blame nobody else. I understood
that what I did was wrong," Johnson said. "OK, so I announced that to
the world, and I hoped that I was able to help people in doing that, and
I think I did."
Johnson says Sterling's comments about HIV show there's still a stigma that needs to be fought.
"I hope this doesn't set
us back," Johnson said. "The stigma is still there. We know that. We've
been fighting it for years, and what we want to continue to do is just
educate the world that it's OK, that you can high-five a person who has
HIV. It's OK. ... It's a shame that Donald used this platform with you,
instead of using this platform to come out and apologize to the world,
which would have been great."
Johnson also told Cooper
that he has yet to receive an apology from Sterling, who called him and
asked him to appear by his side in an interview with Barbara Walters
that never took place.
Johnson and the woman at
the center of the scandal -- V. Stiviano -- have met briefly only once,
the NBA legend said, taking a picture at a Los Angeles Dodgers game.
Johnson is a part-owner of the baseball team.
"I don't know the young
lady. I barely know Donald, so now I am caught in the middle of this
love affair or whatever they had," Johnson said.
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