In 2014, the NBA faced a major controversy with the Los Angeles Clippers’ Donald Sterling scandal, which erupted after he was secretly recorded by a woman he was involved with. Former NBA player and two-time All-Star Baron Davis shared insights into Sterling's behind-the-scenes behavior during a discussion with four-time NBA champion Draymond Green.
Audio clips were leaked online capturing Sterling making racist comments. But, what fans didn’t realize at the time was that Sterling already had a bad reputation among his players due to his behavior.
Baron Davis shared his experiences with Donald Sterling while he was with the Clippers during a recent episode of The Draymond Green Show.
Baron Davis' experience with the Los Angeles Clippers
“The Clippers bro was like a bad soap opera in prison. Imagine going to art class and they take all your paint and your tools, and all your paint brushes. Then they give them back to you when you painting but they keep hitting your elbows while your painting,” said Davis.
“You know you walk into the Warriors facility like alright cool, I can hoop. You walk in the Clippers facility, you’re like man, who is about to snitch on me now, where are these f—-ing cameras at, and who’s crying today, somebody is crying today, somebody is pissed off crying and it’s all because of the owner,” he continued.
Baron Davis also shared that he didn't view Donald Sterling as explicitly racist, but rather as someone who harbored hate towards everyone.
“He was just a weirdo bro, he was just hella weird with weird people around him, and I felt like anybody who hung around that dude had to be a weird mother f—-er. He was like beyond weird, and not that he was racist, he was a hate everybodyist,” the two-time NBA All-Star said.
Draymond Green probed a little bit more asking, “So it wasn’t even that he just hated black people, he hated everybody?”
Davis answered with, “He hated everybody bro, he probably hates himself, he was delusional and hateful, so he would say anything to anybody, women, man, black, brown.”
The incident with Donald Sterling
Then the former Clippers star started laughing stating, “Man he brought some old a– ladies in at the end of one of the games, and was like man…. I’m going to leave that one alone…”
Green asked him to continue his story and Baron Davis obliged. “They walk in, it’s like seven old a– white ladies right, and he walked in the locker room, we had won and then he had walked out and was like, ‘wait for them to get in the shower’ and then he pointed at me and was like ‘especially him,’” he said.
Baron Davis shared the traumatic experience recalling, “And this lady was just sitting, hanging out at my locker, but she just talking, like, where are you from? Oh, you went there, so you wait for me to get up? You know what I mean? Like, it was. It was foul, bro. It was like, I could have sued for sexual harassment.”
The fallout of Donald Sterling's actions
The Donald Sterling scandal marked an important moment in NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's early tenure. In response to the controversy, the LA Clippers staged a protest before a playoff game, symbolically discarding their team warmups at midcourt.
Days after TMZ released the clip of Sterling making racist comments, Silver imposed a lifetime ban on Sterling from the NBA and fined him $2.5 million. Despite these sanctions, the process of Sterling selling the LA Clippers was a long and difficult time.
NBA owners voted to compel Sterling to sell the team, surpassing the required 75% majority vote to oust him as an owner.
Following the sale of the Clippers to billionaire Steve Ballmer in 2017, Sterling shared in an interview with NBC News that despite the negative press surrounding the scandal, he expressed contentment.
Sterling's wife Rochelle Stein and his attorney attempted to appeal the former owner's lifetime ban with the league but was unsuccessful, and Sterling's lifetime ban remained in effect.
The Hulu series “Clipped” goes into the dramatic events of the Donald Sterling scandal, which erupted when recordings by V. Stiviano revealed racist remarks made by the former Clippers owner, leading to a significant fallout.
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