The NBA’s players have caught a lot of grief over the past few years for attitudes and violent incidents. The latest flap over a reasonable dress code showed that many players have no clue what “real life” actually means in America. However, other than the Detroit brawl in November 2004, what player has done something viler than the actions of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling since 2003?
A judge has ordered Sterling, a multi-billionaire, to pay nearly $5 million in fees to plaintiffs’ attorneys in a lawsuit accusing him of discriminating against black and Latino tenants in property that Sterling owns.
The judgement involved a 2003 lawsuit alleging that Sterling “tried to drive out non-Korean tenants,” particularly blacks and Latinos, at apartments he owned in the city’s Koreatown neighborhood.
As if that was not slimy enough, the judge went ballistic on Sterling’s defense team for “scorched earth” legal tactics, calling the attorneys’ conduct “often unacceptable, and sometimes outrageous.”
So, the SportsEye asks, what is worse. Institutional racism or bad attitude and too much bling?