What's Wrong With Donald Sterling?

For those who may have been hiding in a cave, or vacationing out in the woods, and not had access to public information over the last few days, the picture on the left and comments regarding same have been causing quite a controversy.

While the title of this article is "What's Wrong With Donald Sterling?", Mr. Sterling himself is not even in that picture. It is actually a picture of basketball legend and Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Magic Johnson, surrounded on the left by Rachel Rodriguez and on the right by V. Stiviano.

Ms. Stiviano happens to be the ex-girlfriend of a very wealthy 81-year old man, and that old man is the Donald Sterling in question. He is the longtime owner of the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA, and he was none too pleased, despite having a decades-long friendship with Magic, to learn that Stiviano had posted this picture to her Instagram account.

Now for those of you still behind the times, Instagram is yet another social media site, a place where folks post up pictures. What makes Instagram unique is that it has a variety of editing tools to give your photos a unique look and feel, such as the old-time look you might find in boardwalk 1800's-era pics, or turning color pics into black and white. The site also allows you to share the pics easily to other social media sites, such as Facebook or Twitter.

Stiviano apparently had the pic snapped months ago at a 2013 Dodgers game, but just recently posted it to her Instragram, along with another of her posing with Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp, also a black man. Apparently a friend of Sterling saw the pictures and told him about them. This prompted Sterling to confront Stiviano in a conversation that was recorded by her, in which he demonstrated quite obviously the answer to the question posed by this article.

What's wrong with Donald Sterling? The answer is fairly easy: he is a racist. We are talking separate drinking fountains, separate bathrooms, have them sit in the back of the bus racist. Because while publicly he has glad-handed black people, donated larges sums of money to black charities, and even received awards from black organizations, deep in his heart he simply feels they are inferior. Why else would he make the comments that he made to Stiviano?

In the conversation, Sterling asks "Why are you taking pictures with minorities?" When Stiviano, of black Latino heritage herself, questions this concern, Sterling replies "Yeah, it bothers me a lot that you want to promo...broadcast that you're associating with black people." He goes on to say that she doesn't have to "..have yourself with, walking with black people" and specifically states that he doesn't want her bringing Johnson to the Clippers games as well.

Besides the obvious problems with these statements, they are completely ironic, as Sterling has owned the Clippers since 1981, and the overwhelming majority of the team's players over those three decades have been black players. In fact, the NBA itself, in which he is one of only a few dozen owners, features blacks as an overwhelming majority of it's overall player base. So Sterling has had no problem with employing blacks, or making money from the performance of black athletes.

Of course, Sterling, through others (he has not publicly responded himself yet) is circling the wagons. He alleges that Stiviano embezzled nearly $2 million from him during the relationship, that she stated she would "get even" with him, and of course there is the whole matter of her taping this conversation to begin with.

Sterling, by the way, is married. Has been for 50 years. His wife filed a lawsuit in March which states that Stiviano met Sterling at the 2010 Super Bowl and began having an affair with him. According to the Los Angeles Times, Mrs. Sterling alleges in her suit that he used community property to buy Stiviano "a 2012 Ferrari, two Bentleys and a 2013 Range Rover", worth over half a million dollars all together. The suit also alleges that he gave Stiviano nearly $2 million to purchase a duplex near the Beverly Center, a major LA shopping mall, last year, and has provided her with nearly a quarter of a million dollars in upkeep and living expenses.

As the relationship between Sterling and Stiviano has apparently finally begun unwinding in recent months, there have been a series of lawsuits and public comments. Who knows the nature of the relationship between Sterling and Stiviano behind closed doors? However, anyone with two eyes and half a brain can take a look at the old man worth a fortune, the 20-something bikini model, and add it up to the typical gold digger getting whatever she can from a rich, old man. And also, a rich old man getting whatever he can from a bikini model thanks to his wealth. It's a very old story.

However, while much is wrong with Donald Sterling using his wealth in this manner, and much is wrong with V. Stiviano using her feminine charms in this manner, those are basically character flaws. The problem that has emerged thanks to the recording is a deeper one, the problem of racism.

That any human being, wealthy or not, has a problem with their close friends, even their intimate relationship partners, simply being seen in public, posing for innocent pictures, posting those on social media, and in general simply associating with members of any minority racial, ethnic, or religious community is appalling.

Why would Donald Sterling, or anyone else of that matter, care at all that V. Stiviano or any other human being is posing for pictures at a ball game with a black celebrity, an Asian fan, a Hispanic ballplayer, or any other human being who is from any non-white background?

Now don't get me wrong, I am far from naive. We all have our prejudices. We all have our faults. But if you ever see a friend or family member hanging out with someone of another race, posting pictures with friends of other racial or ethnic backgrounds, or engaging in a relationship with someone of another race and actually feel something offensive inside, then the problem is with you, not with them.

And this problem is not going to go away simply with a bunch of lectures from public figures, or with any amount of blog articles. It is going to lessen only when the great majority of people in every single race, ethnicity, and religion stop looking at others with a label, and start looking at each person as an individual human being.

What's wrong with Donald Sterling? Frankly, a lot of things. But most certainly that he is a racist. And guess what? News flash: he is far from the only one out here. And that number does not only include whites, it includes members of every racial, ethnic, religious, and sexual background that you can name. Judge Donald Sterling properly, as he deserves. And then when you are done, take a moment, and take an honest look at yourself as well.

Never the Answer

Last night at the Wells Fargo Center, the increasingly embarrassing Philadelphia 76ers put on a dog-and-pony show for their remaining fans to honor one of the most polarizing and controversial stars in franchise history.

Allen Iverson, also known as "A.I." (emphasis on the "I"), was feted with the usual speeches from other players and club officials past and present, and a career highlight video. He also had his number '3' retired, with a banner hung from the rafters representing that honor.

As a part of the ceremony, one of the many gifts bestowed upon Iverson last night was a modest-sized fishing boat with another of his nicknames, "The Answer", scrawled along the side. The problem with the inscription, the nickname as applicable to the player himself, is that it just doesn't apply.

Allen Iverson proved that he was never the answer for this franchise. I feel that it's honoring of him alongside champions such as Julius Erving, Wilt Chamberlain, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Billy Cunningham, and Hal Greer is preposterous, a blatant ploy to sellout the house as was a similarly undeserving player, Charles Barkley in 2001.

Every one of those first half-dozen players mentioned in the last paragraph were great individual players on the court. Every one of them was an all-star, and spent some period of time in their NBA career as one of the best at their respective position. They played hard, well, and brought honor to the 76ers logo, fans, franchise.

They also brought the franchise and we fans something that Iverson, and Barkley, never did, an NBA Championship. Allen Iverson played parts of 14 seasons in the NBA, most of them as a starting shooting guard. He played a full 10, and parts of two others, with the Sixers franchise.

He was the 76ers first round selection, the first player selected overall, in the 1996 NBA Draft following a similarly exciting and controversial college career at Georgetown University. As in individual player, he mostly lived up to that status. He led the NBA in scoring 4x, in steals 3x, and in minutes played per-game 4x in his full Sixer seasons.

His whirling dervish style of play also injected life back into a fan base which had grown disillusioned during a 5-year stretch of losing seasons which had begun when Barkley left town. The last four of those seasons resulted in the team winning 30 fewer games than it won while playing a bland style of basketball with zero on-court personalities.

Iverson certainly brought personality, and the local media bought into his "inner city", hip-hop celebrity act hook, line, and sinker. Especially guilty was the Philadelphia Daily News, a local rag newspaper with plummeting circulation that has become as irrelevant as the team, which splashed his face across the front and back pages of it's tabloid on a regular basis.

But lost in all of the flash and style was the fact that on the court there was precious little success. In just one season, the memorably glorious 2000-01 campaign, did the Sixers enjoy real success as a team during the entirety of Iverson's tenure as it's star and leader.

The team had reached the playoffs in each of the two previous seasons, won an Opening Round, but had lost both times in the Conference Semi-Finals. In that 2000-01 season, Iverson had led the NBA in scoring for the 2nd time in his career. Now for the one time in his career, he translated that game and helped lift his team to stirring post-season victories.

The Sixers again won in the Opening Round, vanquishing an Indiana team that had eliminated them in each of the two prior playoffs. Then back-to-back, they defeated first Toronto and then Milwaukee in dramatic 7-game series to reach the NBA Finals for the first time since the 1983 NBA Championship team.

In those Finals, Iverson enjoyed one more shining moment, capping this post-season run that is really the only such period of glory that he can hang his hat upon. In the opening game at Los Angeles, Iverson almost single-handedly willed the Sixers to an overtime win. Unfortunately it would be their only victory in the series, as the Lakers then stormed back to win the next four straight games and the title.

It is that season of glory that fans cling to in their memory banks, frankly because it is the only season of real glory for the franchise since Doctor J hung up his sneakers. Other than that 2000-01 season, the 76ers have won just a handful of Opening Round matchups, never advancing further in the NBA playoffs for what is now three full decades.

Now I am certainly not going to blame 30 years of non-contending on one player in Iverson. I already mentioned some of his stats, he was most definitely an exciting, all-star caliber player. But what he wasn't was the same thing that Barkley wasn't before him: a winner.

I was a huge Sixer fan during my childhood through the 70's and mid-80's, a period that included one of the worst seasons in NBA history in 1972-73 and some awful teams before the Dr. J era began, then the full glory of that period during Doc's career when the Sixers became perennial title contenders.

What did happen during both the Barkley era and then the Iverson era was that the team came to be dominated by those players and their selfish styles on the court. They never were able to attract or elevate players around them to create that perennially winning situation.

During the Iverson era, the 76ers won just that lone Atlantic Division and Eastern Conference title in 2000-01. More representative of their finish during his time were the 6th or lower records which came eight times for the team in the Eastern Conference during his career in Philly.

For the entirety of the 5 seasons following 2000-01, the team finished with exactly a .500 regular season cumulative record. For the entirety of the 4 seasons prior to 2000-01, the team finished with a cumulative record that was 36 games under that .500 mark. Bottom line: Iverson had one memorable year in Philly.

My own interest in the Sixers has unfortunately disintegrated over the last quarter century. Both Barkley and Iverson proved themselves to be colorful characters and all-star level individual players, but neither was able to deliver more than a handful of winning stretches of play. Meanwhile, in numerous post-game interviews and off-court incidents, both set horrible examples for their youthful fans.

There have been other disappointing pro athletes in Philadelphia over the last couple of decades, players whose greatness wearing their team uniform was obvious, but who never were able to elevate their teams to a championship level. But I would argue that both Donovan McNabb and Eric Lindros did far more good than harm for the Eagles and Flyers respectively. That is an argument for another article.

As for Allen Iverson, he never did prove to be "The Answer" for the Philadelphia 76ers. Last night he was rewarded for that one 2000-01 oasis in what has been a Philly pro basketball desert over the last three decades. Right now the Sixers franchise is an embarrassment on the court, and in again bestowing an honor on a player that does not deserve it, they only add to that embarrassment.

1980: Not A Kid Anymore

All this year at my Facebook page, which you can view from the link in the sidebar here at my website by joining up yourself and 'friend'-ing me, I am taking a daily trip back in time to the 1980's.

Each month I am highlighting a different year chronologically, and this month have been featuring the music, tv, movies, and important events of the first year of the decade: 1980.

In 1980 the world changed, both in my own individual life and the world at large, in some of the most important and influential ways it ever would. Just one year earlier, as 1979 dawned, I was a 17-year old high school senior living in an apartment in South Philly with my dad and brother. Little did I know how much a life could change in less than a year.

I had been dating a girl, Anne Jacobs, ever since meeting her down at the Jersey shore in Wildwood, New Jersey during the late summer of 1976. We overcame the fact that I lived in South Philly without a car and she lived out in the Delaware County suburb of Prospect Park to become high school sweethearts.

Anne was a year behind me in school, and so while I was finishing up my senior year and preparing to graduate from St. John Neumann high school in South Philadelphia during the first half of 1979, she was still just a junior at Archbishop Prendergast high school out in Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

It was at some point in the late spring of '79 that we began to realize something big might be up. There were increasingly unmistakable signs to us that Anne had become pregnant, and by the early summer we knew it was true. We told our parents at the end of that summer, and I put my LaSalle University plans aside to go out and find a job.

The Philadelphia 76ers Are Losers

This afternoon the local NBA team, the Philadelphia 76ers, signalled to their fan base what most already knew, that it is a losing organization with no future whatsoever.

They did so with the signing of former 76ers star Allen Iverson to a contract.

This signing has to rank as one of the single most cynical moves ever foisted by a professional sports organization on its fan base in the long history of this sometimes-great sports town.

Iverson is now 34 years old. That is young by normal standards, but an old man by NBA standards.

Larry Bird retired at age 35 after a couple of seasons battling injuries as mostly a shell of his former greatness. Magic Johnson was driven from the game at age 33 by a combination of his positive testing for HIV and bad knees. Michael Jordan was 36 when he walked away for the 2nd, but not final, time. His final chapter ended at age 40, after mostly limping through parts of three seasons in which he accomplished little.

The point is that the three most important, influential professional basketball players of the last three decades, all winners, were roughly Iverson's age when they were wrapping up their careers as champions. Iverson, never to be confused with a winner as a professional, is on his last legs.

So the Philadelphia 76ers have signed him for what reason? To build a champion around? To become a mentor for players like Jrue Holiday, who may actually become a legitimate part of the future for this franchise? To teach the younger players the way to win, the right way to play and practice?

Practice? We're talkin' about practice, man? Practice?

No Mo Cheeks

Thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies run to the World Series championship this fall, the bar has been measurably raised for all of the other sports franchises in the city. The Flyers have responded on the ice with a tremendous run that has seen the team rise from an embarrassing winless start to the brink of their division lead. The Eagles seemed dead just a couple weeks ago, now they are back in playoff contention having beaten the best team in football.

The 76ers, however, have floundered and fallen into last place. A late-season run to the playoffs just eight months ago was enough to get coach Maurice 'Mo' Cheeks a contract extension, but apparently that extension was not enough to guarantee his job. The team struggled to open this season, floundering around the .500 mark for the first month before their recent bottom-out. Management simply did not like what they were seeing, and the first head to roll in the Philly coaching community was lopped off. The 76ers fired Mo Cheeks, a popular local legend as a player.

That recipe has not seemed to work real well, by the way. Both Bobby Clarke as a GM and Bill Barber as the coach with the Flyers organization were unceremoniously dumped despite their legendary player status. Only Billy Cunningham, who coached Cheeks' 1983 Sixers to the NBA Championship and was a player on the Sixers 1967 NBA title team, has had true, lengthy success here after also having a strong playing career here.

There is something wrong with the mix on the Philadelphia 76ers pro basketball team. I don't know what that might be, but I do know that the local hoops squad has not been a serious NBA title contender for a long time. Even in Charles Barkley and Allen Iverson's best seasons, the Sixers were barely true contenders. The argument can be made that not since Cheeks himself ran down the court and dunked for the clinching moment of that '83 title have the 76ers been a real threat to win it all.

Hopefully GM Ed Stefanski can get a handle on both the coaching situation and the player roster, and move this franchise in a direction that will not only get the fan base excited again, but give them a title contender to root for. I don't know if firing Cheeks was the right move. Frankly, the Sixers are #4 on the list of local sports teams for me. I would like to root for them again, but they just don't interest me. That was not Cheeks fault, I liked the guy and had good feelings of his history with that title team. Stefanski is now on the hot seat to build that excitement-generating contender.