NBA to Shelly Sterling: Your Ownership Stake 'Automatically Terminated' if League Forces Husband to Sell Clippers

After Shelly Sterling told Barbara Walters on Sunday that she will fight to keep her ownership stake in the Clippers even if the NBA forces her husband Donald Sterling to sell the team, the NBA essentially told her, “not so fast.”

The NBA, in a statement on Sunday night, said that if the league’s owners vote to force Sterling to sell the Clippers, then Shelly Sterling’s interests will “automatically be terminated” as well:

“Under the NBA Constitution, if a controlling owner’s interest is terminated by a 3/4 vote, all other team owners’ interests are automatically terminated as well. It doesn’t matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team.”