Dick Parsons, the former Time Warner head whom the NBA appointed to be the interim CEO of the Clippers, said he thinks the NBA will force Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling to sell the team and the Clippers could emerge as “America’s team.”
“I think the Clippers will become America’s team if we get this right,” Parsons said on Monday at a press conference when he was introduced, according to ProBasketballTalk.
Parsons also said that the NBA “will prevail” and that “at the end of the day I believe ownership will change.”
“There’s so much momentum for doing the right thing,” he said.
Shelly Sterling said in an interview on Sunday that she would fight to keep her ownership stake in the team, but the NBA released a statement on Sunday evening stating that her ownership stake would terminate if her husband is forced to sell the team:
“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.”
NBA Commissioner banned Sterling for life for racist comments about “black people” on an audio recording to V. Stiviano and has said he intends to get 3/4 of the owners to force a sale. NBA players have suggested they would boycott games next year if Sterling owns the team. Players like LeBron James have said NBA playerstdo not want anyone in the Sterling family owning the team.