NBA Rumors Round-Up
NBA Rumors: Maximum Punishment for Sterling?
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
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Sacramento Mayor and former NBA point guard Kevin Johnson has been asked to represent the NBA players’ interests regarding the alleged racist comments made by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and any disciplinary action the league may take against Sterling. The Players Association is without an executive director after Billy Hunter was removed in 2013 and so Johnson, who recently fought to keep the Kings in Sacramento, will try to unify the players and make sure their concerns are heard by the league before any final decisions are made regarding Sterling.
It is not clear what the NBA’s constitution allows in terms of disciplining owners in a situation like this. The most significant action ever taken by an owner for misconduct came against Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor when he and Kevin McHale made an illegal player contract with Joe Smith in 2000. Taylor was suspended a year and fined $1 million. It is possible that Sterling will receive a similar sanction. What is not likely is any sort of removal procedures imposed by the owners and Commissioner Adam Silver. Generally, leagues can only take a team from an owner when they have committed some sort of serious crime, or they are insolvent. No laws were broken by Sterling, and his team is very profitable, so this does not seem like a likely scenario.
The woman you hear talking to Donald Sterling during a taped conversation in which he makes racist remarks will NOT cooperate with the NBA Commissioner’s investigation … and we’ve learned her refusal has nothing to do with the tape. A rep from the law office representing V. Stiviano tells TMZ … they heard NBA Commissioner Adam Silver state his intention to interview Stiviano, but that’s not going to happen right now. We’re told her lawyer, Mac Nehoray, will not allow her to answer questions about pending litigation against his client filed by Sterling’s estranged wife.
via TMZ.com
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver stated in his press conference on Saturday that the NBA would conduct an investigation into the Donald Sterling situation. Silver said the main goal would be to authenticate the tape and make sure that it was Sterling who made the racist comments. Silver also said that the NBA would interview Sterling and possibly Stiviano, the woman heard on the tape.
Silver indicated that the league could have a final ruling by as early as Tuesday. However, if Stiviano is unwilling to cooperate with the investigation, it could delay the NBA from making a final decision on how to deal with this situation. If Stiviano does not cooperate, then the league may push forward and make a final ruling anyway, but would do so without hearing from one of the only two people involved in the conversation in question.
Hopefully there will be no major delays with the NBA’s investigation. The sooner a decision is made, the sooner the league and its fans can try and focus on what has been an extremely entertaining first round of the playoffs.
Steve Kerr met with New York team president Phil Jackson over the weekend to discuss the Knicks’ vacant head-coaching job.
Kerr said he had dinner with Jackson on Friday for a few hours and also talked with him on Saturday.
“We will keep talking,” said Kerr, a TNT analyst who was in Brooklyn to work Game 4 of the playoff series between the Nets and Toronto Raptors. “There is a lot to cover on both sides. This was the first time we’ve talked about the job. It just opened up last week. We got a lot of things to discuss.”
“It is safe to say that we have a lot of the same ideas. As far as getting into the details of the triangle and that sort of thing, I am not going to expand on that. Obviously there is a strong connection between us and our beliefs.”
With the recent firing of Mike Woodson as New York Knicks head coach, the hiring process surrounding Steve Kerr is intensifying. What were once rumors are now verified meetings between Kerr and Knicks president Phil Jackson. It is becoming clear that Jackson really likes Kerr as a candidate because of Kerr’s familiarity with the triangle offense and their similar beliefs and ideas about the game.
Kerr stated that he learned a lot of what he knows about basketball from Jackson and Tex Winter, the innovator behind the triangle offense. While Kerr would not confirm that he would implement the triangle offense, his statement about Jackson and Winter strongly indicates that some of those philosophies will be used. Also, Kerr speaking about the finer details of what he would do as the Knicks head coach seems to confirm the reports that the job is his if he wants it.
