BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Of all the many responses to Donald Sterling's terribly racist remarks caught on tape and released by TMZ and Deadspin, only Mark Cuban's was truly disappointing. Players such as LeBron James and Paul Pierce and owners like San Antonio's Peter Holt and Miami's Micky Arison offered stern rebukes of the Clippers owner.
Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks' high-profile owner, stopped well short of that.
'It's playoff time, no reason to talk about anything in the NBA that does not relate to our Mavs,' Cuban said on his Twitter account. In a later tweet, he implied that there would be a proper time deal with this - you know, some time later. Now was the time to focus on basketball.
There was a deep irony, then, when one of Cuban's players provided the marquee moment of these already-wild playoffs. With the Mavericks trailing the San Antonio Spurs by two points with 1.7 seconds remaining, Jose Calderon inbounded the ball to Vince Carter. Carter pump faked, sending Manu Ginobili lunging by him in a similar fashion to how he faked out Philadelphia's Tyrone Hill as a member of the Toronto Raptors nearly 13 years ago. This time, however, Carter drilled the shot, with Cuban one of the first people to reach him in celebration. Game-winning buzzer beaters in the playoffs live forever, and Carter's will, too.
It is not quite as amplified as it should be in the moment, however. Until the NBA disciplines Sterling in some form, he is going to cast a pall over these playoffs. That stinks for the league, because these playoffs have been great.
We have got signature performances already from players as varied as Carter, LaMarcus Aldridge, Houston's anonymous Troy Daniels, Paul Pierce, Nene, Mike Dunleavy, Tony Allen, Reggie Jackson and on and on. Only one series feels like a formality, with Miami up 3-0 on Charlotte. The other seven series, as of Sunday morning, all feel as if they are in the balance, especially because road teams have won 15 of the first 26 playoff games.
In the West, it is more than a little possible that we could have all four series go the full seven games. Imagine that: 28 games pitting eight of the league's nine best teams - arguably - against each other. It is a beautiful scenario.
Yet, we are talking about Sterling, and it is justifiable. This story is so much bigger than basketball - it says so much about race and class and big business, not to mention the gender considerations that are not being discussed. That is the main reason for the NBA to discipline Sterling, and do so emphatically: It is a moral imperative.
'I think sometimes there are very successful people who are not very good people,' Steve Novak, the Toronto Raptors' union representative and a former Clipper, said on Saturday. 'I think if it's true, that these are the things that he said, it's one of those cases that there are people who are incredible at what they do - in his case, real estate and investing - but that doesn't necessarily define you as a person. Your character comes through sometimes.
'More than anything, I don't think the league can sit back and say it didn't happen if it did. There's no way it should be tolerated.'
The other thing about this situation being bigger than basketball, however, is that it is bigger than basketball. That is what Cuban gets so spectacularly wrong: There is no focusing on the playoffs, at least entirely, when fundamental human decency is being trampled. It would take a bizarre ability to compartmentalize to push the awful words of one of the league's owners to the side until the playoffs were over.
It is nice that players such as James so eloquently and concisely expressed their ire toward Sterling. However, it is on the league its owners, like Cuban, to really do something about the situation. They have incentives both moral and practical to do so.
Post By http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/04/27/bigger-than-basketball-clippers-owner-donald-sterlings-racist-remarks-overshadowing-nba-playoffs/
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