Sterling Hires Team to 'Dig Up Dirt' on NBA

Owners and commissioners, watch your back
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 13, 2014 8:17 AM CDT
Sterling Hires Team to 'Dig Up Dirt' on NBA
Bobby Samini, left, attorney for Donald Sterling, talks to the media outside Los Angeles Superior court Wednesday, June 11, 2014.   (AP Photo/Nick Ut)

The NBA better hope there are no skeletons in its closet: After plenty of bouncing back and forth on the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling is striking again at the league, having hired a bevvy of investigators to "dig up all the dirt they can find" on NBA owners and commissioners, a source tells the AP. Sterling has given four separate firms 30 days and a six-figure budget to look into league finances, previous claims of discriminatory behavior, and whether any other NBA owners made racist, sexist, or off-color remarks, the source notes, adding "the gloves are off, as they say." The investigation will also pick at the compensation handed to past commissioner David Stern and current commissioner Adam Silver.

Shelly Sterling has argued she is the sole trustee of The Sterling Family Trust after two doctors found her husband mentally unfit, and a four-day probate court hearing is scheduled for July. The NBA urged a judge on Wednesday to confirm Shelly's authority to sell the Clippers to Steve Ballmer, and the source says Sterling reluctantly agreed to hire private investigators after this week's probate court developments. "His objective is to demonstrate for everybody that the NBA is a damned hypocrite," Sterling's lawyer, Bobby Samini tells ESPN. "We're going to pull every case against the NBA. Then we'll demonstrate that the culture of racism and gender discrimination is born at the NBA." (More Donald Sterling stories.)

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