Silver: Mrs. Sterling Cannot Retain Clippers

Immediately before the NBA Draft Lottery, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the elephant in the room and answered questions about Donald Sterling and his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Does Mrs. (Shelly) Sterling have a case to retain her ownership in the team:

(Silver:) As I understand the position of Mrs. Sterling’s lawyers, in essence they would say we accept you can terminate Mr. Sterling, but somehow Mrs. Sterling comes with the team. I think even if that’s not what it said in our constitution, it just doesn’t make sense. The same way even if you had unrelated partners, if you terminated the franchise of the primary owner and that owner had several colleagues, cronies, who were also owners with him, it wouldn’t make sense that under our constitution we could then go about selling the team, but those other partners would have to come along.

So our position is once under the constitution, based on Mr. Sterling’s conduct, if the owners ultimately decide that it’s appropriate to terminate his franchise, the interest of all owners is terminated.

via Pro Bball Report