The disgraced former owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, was ousted and banned for life from the NBA once allegations about his racist behavior were proven true.
All of this was occurring when the Clips were experiencing some of the most sustained success in the franchise’s history during the feted Lob City era with Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan.
One of Sterling’s terrible claims was that he didn’t like white players, and he was against the forthcoming deal with JJ Redick, who was a free agent at the time and has already agreed to play for the Clippers.
Clippers head coach Doc Rivers tells Ernie Johnson he threatened to quit after he was told Donald Sterling did not like white players and didn’t want to go forward with terms that were agreed to with them free agent JJ Redick. Sterling eventually relented.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) May 18, 2020
Apparently, Redick received a call from Rivers with some colorful language about playing for the team under him. The veteran sharpshooter tweeted about the entire situation on Monday.
“Deal was done on Tues in LA. Flew to Austin. Got a call from Doc at 6 pm July 4. “You better play for me mother****er”. Had no idea what he was talking about. Tried calling my agents. They didn’t answer calls for 48 hours. Finally Arn called Saturday PM to tell me what happened,” the former Clippers guard recalled.
Obviously, JJ Redick did end up playing under Doc Rivers in LA, producing four of the most productive seasons of his career as the league continued to expand further and further away from the basket – suiting Redick’s deadeye 3-point shooting beautifully.
Redick shot 44.0 percent from downtown in his four season with the Clippers on 1,532 triples, even leading the league in 3-point percentage in 2015-16 with a lofty 47.5 percent from deep.
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