Donald Sterling responds to the NBA, claiming a 'lovers' quarrel' is leading to the league's 'illegal' actions

Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling has finally responded to the NBA’s May 27 deadline in a bid to save his ownership of his basketball team. Sterling had until Tuesday to protest the league's charge in advance of a June 3 hearing in which the NBA's other 29 owners will vote whether to force Sterling to sell his team, using bylaws in the NBA’s constitution that Sterling has agreed to for years.

Sterling, who was caught on tape saying terrible things about minorities to girlfriend V. Stiviano (comments Sterling at first disputed, then later admitted to and apologized for), has vowed to fight both his banishment from the NBA and never to pay the $2.5 million fine the league levied against him. In a report first published by USA Today, Sterling blamed the expulsion on a “lovers’ quarrel” gone wrong, complaining along the way the capital gains tax that he’d be forced to pay for selling the Clippers (in a deal that could net Sterling in upwards of $1.5-2 billion, pre-taxes) would be “egregious.”

The Los Angeles Clippers owner contends the NBA’s motives and intended actions are “illegal.” Via USA Today, here is part of Sterling’s response:

So, in reality, Mr. Sterling is being banned for life, fined $2.5 million and stripped of his ownership for a purely private conversation with his lover that he did not know was being recorded and that he never intended would see the light of day.

We do not believe a court in the United States of America will enforce the draconian penalties imposed on Mr. Sterling in these circumstances, and indeed, we believe that preservation of Mr. Sterling’s constitutional rights requires that these sham proceedings be terminated in Mr. Sterling’s favor.

The response also went on to point out the NBA has not gone as far with any financial or banishment penalty with any player, owner, executive coach or team in the league’s history, and that his unwitting recorded conversation with V. Stiviano was and is against California law.

Sterling’s lawyers also referred to a litany of cases that, outside of a private ownership league like the NBA, would give any court precedence in stopping the league from forcing both the termination of Sterling from the NBA, and forcing his selling of the team. 

His representatives then went after the private bylaw that the league is using to remove Sterling, one he signed over and over as Clippers owner in the years since taking the team over in 1982: