Clippers owner Donald Sterling did not sound like a cold hearted, penny pinching, racist on the witness stand of a trail Tuesday.
He sounded clueless and disinterested, however.
Elgin Baylor — Lakers legend and Clipper employee for more than two decades — is suing Sterling for age discrimination for Baylor’s firing as team general manager last year. Sterling was on the stand Tuesday and among the “highlights” courtesy the Los Angeles Times are:
• “I don’t profess to know anything about basketball. I’m a professional lawyer.”
• Sterling said he had no idea who Elgin Baylor was when he hired him, didn’t know he was a player included in the NBA’s 50 greatest of All-Time.
“No,” Sterling answered. “… I didn’t know that. I hired him for $3,000 a month. I didn’t really know what his role was…. He was working in a mail-order company back then.”
• Sterling continually sounded like someone disassociated from what was going on within the Clipper organization.
As for what he recalls about Baylor taking over basketball matters, the owner said, “[Baylor] … ultimately made $500,000 a year. Somewhere in between, he assumed that role.”
• “Elgin Baylor wouldn’t tell me the players he was drafting. He was afraid I’d tell another owner,” Sterling testified.
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- zblott - Mar 16, 2011 at 11:38 AM
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Including Sterling’s immediate family, I think it’s safe to say everyone outside of Donald Sterling himself knows the man is a world class a-hole who deserves nothing better than endless pain and agony.
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- ahemahem - Mar 16, 2011 at 11:55 AM
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Baylor was a great basketball player, but now he looks like an abused wife filing for alimony when she should just be glad the marriage is over and she survived.
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- denverhoopdreams - Mar 16, 2011 at 1:42 PM
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Sterling is a loser, he’s the abusive husband that needs to pay for what he has done.
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- chargerdillon - Mar 16, 2011 at 12:43 PM
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Donald Sterling owns the Clippers and he also has tiger blood, DUH LOSING
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- goforthanddie - Mar 16, 2011 at 3:24 PM
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“I don’t profess to know anything about basketball. I’m a professional lawyer.”
Considering how often he gets sued, he isn’t any good at law either.
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- jimsjam33 - Mar 16, 2011 at 4:55 PM
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Hmmmm ,
The Clippers are playing pretty good with the pill right now . They have a nice combo of players and are only a small forward away from being in the play-offs next year . They are exciting and the Baron Davis trade for Mo Williams looks good. Let’s talk basketball .
For so many years people only talked about how the Clippers stunk and had no future . Now they have an exciting future and the media is drumming up negative vibes using Sterling as their prop . Go away naysayers.
Baylor is gone . He was a bad GM and needed to be replaced . Wah Wah . Get over it . As for Sterling it’s his team , he doesn’t play , so stop giving him the focus . He’s not a Steinnbrenner , Jerry Buss , or Jerry Jones . He’s a real estate mogul . Now move on and leave him alone. Just sign the pay checks dawg and everything will be alright !
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- heyooooh - Mar 16, 2011 at 8:55 PM
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David Stern must be furious reading those comments. He’s got no one to blame though…he’s provided shelter for this moron for years.
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- evh12345 - Mar 21, 2011 at 12:39 PM
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It is unbelievable that he claims not to have known who Elgin when he hired him.
The managing partner at my firm had no idea who I was before he hired me, but you bet your ass he did a background check, called references, and learned everything he could about me before letting me sign on the dotted line.
To claim that Sterling, a successful attorney, didn’t do any research on the man he was hiring to run the team is rediculous.
I hope the Elgin’s attorneys called him out with their very next question.
