Originally <a href='/showthread.php?p=21753749'>posted</a> on 04/29/2014:
You're 100% wrong.
Set aside the moral or race issues and that sort of thing.
You're wrong from a league-wide, financial and leverage perspective. Sterling has no leverage and Silver/NBA has it all. Could Sterling sue and drag it through the courts? Maybe. But he loses even by winning through that route. Silver knows it. The NBA knows it. And Sterling either knows it or will know it.
Sterling can't win by fighting the inevitable here, like it or not. He just can't.
And whether you like it or not, Silver had to do this if for no other reason than to keep the peace and keep the league together. Again, maybe you hate it, but it's reality. He may have done what he did because he truly believes it. But even if he didn't, he did what he had to do from a league perspective.
AND, he knows he has the upper hand. Sterling can't stay owner. All the sponsors have withdrawn and nobody will play for him after this season. Even if the owners went the other way, which they won't, Sterling will still have nothing. And everyone knows it at this point.
What WILL happen, eventually, is financial concessions will be made to Sterling to get to a settlement. He will cash out and get his fair value (maybe even more than he otherwise would have). And it will all happen before next season. Sterling might even contest or file suit in the immediate future, but it will only be to gain financial leverage in a settlement.
The script is already written, like it or not, and Silver had no option to deviate from that script, unless he wanted to do irreparable damage to the NBA.
You're 100% wrong.
Set aside the moral or race issues and that sort of thing.
You're wrong from a league-wide, financial and leverage perspective. Sterling has no leverage and Silver/NBA has it all. Could Sterling sue and drag it through the courts? Maybe. But he loses even by winning through that route. Silver knows it. The NBA knows it. And Sterling either knows it or will know it.
Sterling can't win by fighting the inevitable here, like it or not. He just can't.
And whether you like it or not, Silver had to do this if for no other reason than to keep the peace and keep the league together. Again, maybe you hate it, but it's reality. He may have done what he did because he truly believes it. But even if he didn't, he did what he had to do from a league perspective.
AND, he knows he has the upper hand. Sterling can't stay owner. All the sponsors have withdrawn and nobody will play for him after this season. Even if the owners went the other way, which they won't, Sterling will still have nothing. And everyone knows it at this point.
What WILL happen, eventually, is financial concessions will be made to Sterling to get to a settlement. He will cash out and get his fair value (maybe even more than he otherwise would have). And it will all happen before next season. Sterling might even contest or file suit in the immediate future, but it will only be to gain financial leverage in a settlement.
The script is already written, like it or not, and Silver had no option to deviate from that script, unless he wanted to do irreparable damage to the NBA.