Tag: Donald Sterling

Former NFL WR compares Jets’ Woody Johnson to exiled NBA owner Donald Sterling

Woody Johnson has come under fire recently for allegedly making racist and sexist comments.

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Following allegations against Jets owner Woody Johnson, former NFL wide receiver Donté Stallworth is ready to compare him to a man who has already been banned from a professional sports league.

Stallworth, who played 10 seasons in the NFL for the six different teams, likened Johnson to disgraced former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who was banned from the NBA in 2014 and forced to sell the team after his racist remarks became public.

“I wonder how Jets players feel that the team owner, Woody Johnson, doesn’t like to be around ‘a whole bunch of Black people,'” Stallworth tweeted. “Sounds like the NFL’s version of Donald Sterling.”

Stallworth specifically referenced a section of the CNN report that alleges Johnson made racist and sexist remarks during his time as United States ambassador to the United Kingdom. The story claims Johnson asked if a 2018 event for Black History Month would include “a whole bunch of Black people,” questioned why the Black community wanted a month to celebrate Black history and said that Black fathers leaving their families was the “real challenge.”

CNN also reported allegations that Johnson made sexist remarks, objectifying, excluding and belittling women and women’s related events on numerous occasions. Another report, from The New York Times, alleges Johnson also used his position as ambassador to promote President Donald Trump’s business in the UK. Johnson was investigated by State Department watchdogs.

It’s unclear what the recourse will be for Johnson, who denied the allegations, but the Sterling outcome would be the nuclear option for the NFL.

When private recordings of Sterling making racist comments surfaced in April 2014, it set off a chain of events that included a plethora of internal discussions between the league, players and coaches, boycotts of the Clippers logo by players and ultimately resulted in a lifetime ban for Sterling and a $2.5 million fine. The Sterling Family Trust eventually sold the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, officially severing ties between Sterling and the NBA.

Former Panthers owner Jerry Richardson had a similar situation unfold in 2017 when news broke that he paid off Panthers employees due to inappropriate workplace conduct that included sexual harassment and racist comments. He sold the team in 2018 as a result of the scandal.

The Sterling scandal took the sports world by storm and led to a quick and decisive ousting of a racist owner.  It’s unclear what the NFL will do about Johnson, however. The league was aware of the story as of Wednesday afternoon but deferred comment to the State Department.

CNN reported that a spokesperson said the State Department stands by Johnson.

Matt Barnes joined Joe, Lo and Dibs …

Matt Barnes joined Joe, Lo and Dibs Wednesday morning and got candid about racism in the NBA. “I’ve faced extreme racism so when ya know people saying words or getting caught on camera or excuse me audio, it’s not that big of a deal to me,” Barnes said. “It didn’t necessarily surprise me. To me I just thought that Donald Sterling was the only one dumb enough to get caught. But there is definitely owners that still have the same views or mentality and that’s kind of just that good ol’ boy generation.”

Paul in the Quibi documentary …

Paul in the Quibi documentary “Blackballed,” via Farbod Esnaashari of Sports Illustrated: “Doc used to always say in order to win a championship, you gotta be lucky, Chris Paul said. “We never were lucky. I don’t think the Donald Sterling thing had anything to do with our shortcomings as a team. It was definitely a bump in the road, something unexpected, but that’s life.”

Doc Rivers nearly quit the Clippers because of Donald Sterling

Donald Sterling didn’t like white basketball players.

It’s pretty wild that Doc Rivers has been the Clippers’ head coach for seven years now. What’s also pretty wild is that the Clippers actually traded a first round pick for Rivers back in 2013 — that rarely happens for coaches.

What makes that even crazier, though, is that Rivers says he almost left the job just a few weeks after the trade went through. Why? Because of Donald Sterling.

Rivers had just secured a sign-and-trade deal to bring J.J. Redick to the Clippers from the Milwaukee Bucks. The deal was done and Rivers was headed home knowing he added a new key piece to his team.

Then, all of a sudden, he got a call saying that Sterling called the deal off because, well, he apparently doesn’t like white basketball players.

Rivers told the story as part of an extended — and illuminating — interview on #NBATogether with Ernie Johnson:

“JJ agrees, I jump on a plane, I fly back to Orlando and I get a call. From Andy Roeser. He says ‘Hey, the deals off.’ I said ‘What do you mean the deal is off?’ [Roeser said]. ‘Donald doesn’t like white players.’ And I said ‘Excuse me?’ Donald Sterling said no.” 

Rivers continued to describe a conversation he had with Sterling shortly after that where he threatened to quit the job.

“I said ‘I will not let you ruin my reputation. Not going to happen. It will never happen.’ ” 

Three hours later, Rivers said, Roeser called Rivers to let him know Sterling changed his mind and the deal went through with no explanation why.

The rest is history. Sterling was banned from the NBA for life almost a year later for making racist statements about black people. He can keep all of that hate to himself now.

Justin Barrasso: What we can expect to …

Justin Barrasso: What we can expect to learn from the players’ perspective in Blackballed? Matt Barnes: We didn’t stand with Donald, we never played for him to begin with. He just happened to be the owner of the team that put us all together. That was a crazy, uncertain time for us as players, and we were glad that [NBA Commissioner] Adam Silver acted as swiftly as he did.

Barnes: It’s frustrating. Me being …

Barnes: It’s frustrating. Me being someone who grew up bi-racial, being half Italian and black, I faced racism at a very early age. It boiled over in high school, to the point where someone was calling my sister a n—–. We happened to fight right after that, and a day-and-a-half later, the KKK vandalized my whole school. They burned down a bathroom and it made national news. I learned at an early age, even though I was very proud to be mixed, I was looked at as a black man. I’ve had enough racist events in my life to understand that racism is real and alive, so the stuff with Sterling didn’t surprise me. He was just dumb enough to get caught, but he wasn’t the only one thinking that way at the time or still thinking that way now.

Chris Paul’s documentary on former Clippers owner’s ban now released

The controversy surrounding Donald Sterling took the league by his surprise. Collectively, the former Clippers told their story.

It took a week longer than we thought it would, but Blackballed is finally available to the masses for consumption.

In case you missed it, the documentary is available on Quibi, the mobile-video platform, and gives viewers a firsthand look of the controversy that engulfed the Los Angeles Clippers during their 2014 playoff run.

Donald Sterling, the immediate past owner of the franchise, would eventually receive a lifetime ban from the NBA from Commissioner Adam Silver after racist comments he made in a private telephone call were made public.

Although Silver’s punishment came down rather swiftly, the documentary gives a first-hand account from the view of the players who were on the Clippers. Paul, who happened to be the President of the NBA Players Association at the time, was one of them.

Paul mentioned the documentary when he appeared on ESPN’s The Jump with Rachel Nichols on Friday, and now that Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance 10-part documentary has wrapped up on ESPN, perhaps there’s an opportunity for the masses to turn their attention to another one of the NBA’s major happenings.

Writing for ESPN’s The Undefeated, Marc Spears revisited the controversy on its five-year anniversary and interviewed a number of the Clippers involved in the protest, including Paul and Blake Griffin.

Now, Paul will again be front-and-center as the first-person interviews from the players involved — many of whom privately protested and implored the commissioner to expel Sterling — will be sure to get some attention.

 

Hearing Rivers’ recollections no longer …