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Clippers express no plans to boycott game
Jeff Hawkins is an award-winning sportswriter with more than four decades in the industry (print and digital media). A freelance writer/stay-at-home dad since 2008, Hawkins started his career with newspaper stints in Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Upstate New York and Illinois, where he earned the 2004 APSE first-place award for column writing (under 40,000 circulation). As a beat writer, he covered NASCAR Winston Cup events at NHIS (1999-2003), the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks (2003-06) and the NFL's Carolina Panthers (2011-12). Hawkins penned four youth sports books, including a Michael Jordan biography. Hawkins' main hobbies include mountain bike riding, 5k trail runs at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., and live music.
All posts by Jeff HawkinsUpdated15 Oct 2021
Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers and several players met for 45 minutes on Saturday to discuss the racial comments allegedly made by team owner Donald Sterling and rejected the idea of boycotting their playoff game on Sunday against the Golden State Warriors.
Among the Clippers in San Francisco for Game 4 of the first-round series who attended the meeting were point guard Chris Paul and forward Blake Griffin. They discussed with Rivers the purported racial remarks that Sterling made to his girlfriend in a 10-minute audio recording obtained Friday night by TMZ.
“We’ve heard all the stuff, the boycotts and all the stuff and all those things are things you could do,” said Rivers, who is in his first year as Clippers coach. “But we choose to play and we’re going to play tomorrow. … It was brought up because I’m sure 20,000 people have suggested it, but, honestly, I’m completely against that and they were, too.
“Why should we let someone’s comments stop us from what we’re trying to do? We’re trying to do something here and we don’t want that getting in the way of what we’re trying to do.”
Paul and Griffin declined reporters’ questions on Sterling, but Paul, as president of the National Basketball Players Association, issued a statement through the NBPA.
“On behalf of the National Basketball Players Association, this is a very serious issue which we will address aggressively,” Paul said. “We have asked (Sacramento) Mayor Kevin Johnson to expand his responsibilities with the NBPA, to determine our response and our next steps. As players, we owe it to our teams and our fans to keep our focus on our game, the playoffs, and the drive to the Finals.”
Rivers continued, “I didn’t like the comments, obviously. We had a great team meeting this morning about it. A lot of guys voiced their opinions. None of them were happy about it. This is a situation where we’re trying to go after something very important for us. Something that we’ve all dreamed about all our childhoods. Donald or anyone else had nothing to do with that dream and we’re not going to let anything get in the way of those dreams.”
Rivers said he has not talked to Sterling.
“We have not and we have not tried honestly,” Rivers said. “This is something that Donald and his family and everyone else has to figure that part out. We don’t need a talk.”
The alleged comments by Sterling, who is the longest tenured owner in the league, has drawn angry reactions from around the league.
“It upsets all of us,” Rivers said. “There’s not one guy that’s happy with this situation. Do you think I want to be talking about this instead of trying to stop Steph Curry? I don’t. I don’t like all the phone calls I’ve been getting and all that stuff. We try to keep clutter away from our team and it’s been brought to our team and it upsets me and it upsets our team.”
