Donald Sterling – Page 3 – Syndication Server

Though NBA commissioner Adam Silver, …

Though NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Walt Disney Co. executive chairman Bob Iger appear — Garcetti describes his phone call to Sterling soon after the scandal broke as “one of the most bizarre talks I’ve ever had” — the film is anchored by interviews with Rivers and former players on the 2014 team including Chris Paul, JJ Redick, DeAndre Jordan and Matt Barnes. (Times staff writer Dan Woike also appears.)

An interview was requested with Andy Roeser, the former team president and top lieutenant to Sterling for 30 years who lost his job in the scandal’s wake, but he declined, filmmakers said. Neither Sterling nor his wife were approached for inclusion and that was intentional, Jacobs said. Filmmakers were explicit that they were seeking the players’ stories, not statements from both sides. “This really wasn’t going to be about Donald,” Jacobs said. “This was going to be an opportunity for these players and these individuals to tell their side of the story without any noise coming from Donald Sterling.”

You’re one of the people involved in the Blackballed documentary on Donald Sterling, why was it still important to tell this story? Chris Paul: I think a lot of times things happen and over time you get a chance to think about it. A lot of times you’re in the moment and you don’t really understand how everything came to be a certain way, or how it affected you or how it made you stronger and where you go from there. We felt like it was a great time to tell this story. I’m excited for everybody to see it.

Chris Paul: One of the biggest parts of the documentary, and they talk about it some, when all that happened, Doc [Rivers], the job in that situation of communicating with all of us as a whole, allowing us to be one voice. One of the biggest things I learned in that situation, he could have let us all go out, let us tweet, let us Instagram, talk about this, talk about that. But we talked about it as a team, and we wanted one voice, and Doc was that voice.

Rivers is acutely aware that he’s the anomaly, in his third NBA head-coaching job and being the calming presence while steering the Clippers franchise away from embarrassment after the Donald Sterling scandal in 2014. “We’ve taken a hit lately, in my opinion,” Rivers said about the state of black coaching in the NBA. “We gotta get back to it. I don’t know why, it just seems to go in ebbs and flows.”