(USA TODAY Sports Images)
Has there ever been a more compelling NBA playoff game in which basketball was a complete afterthought?
Hours after Donald Sterling’s punishment is revealed, the Los Angeles Clippers are scheduled to take the home floor in Game 5 against the Golden State Warriors. It’s the first time the Clippers will play in L.A. since TMZ’s infamous recording was released.
Will fans show up? Will players give a subtle protest as in Game 4 and turn their warmups inside out? Will the team make a more defiant move? Will the Clippers even play?
(Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports)
Though such a protest has been dismissed by many observers, other prominent commentators, such as Slate’s Aisha Harris, are calling for a boycott. She advises the Clippers to stay off the floor for Game 5, writing that it’s “hard to see why the players would feel comfortable playing for someone who so clearly lacks any respect for them based on the color of their skin.”
Harris concludes by saying if the Clippers don’t take the floor, “there can be no mistaking what [they] think about their owner, and the NBA will be forced to take notice.”
(Robert Hanashiro, USA TODAY Sports)
It’s a reasonable argument. But the thing is, there’s no mistaking what most of America thinks about Donald Sterling. The swift reaction from fans, media, sponsors and, presumably, the league shows there’s little to protest other than the archaic beliefs of a doddering old man. Commissioner Adam Silver hands out his punishment on Tuesday at 2 p.m. ET. He’s expected, at the very least, to send away Sterling for the remainder of the playoffs.
Celebrate that by winning the game, taking the series and making a push deep into the playoffs. For decades, the Clippers have been the NBA’s laughingstock. That has been due, in most part, to Sterling’s management. On the day he gets his walking papers, the team could swing a playoff series and use it as a catalyst for a deeper run into the postseason.
What better way to say goodbye than by showing Donald Sterling he was the problem all along?
