That would mean he has no standing to object.

the team is actually owned by a trust, of which he and his wife are the trustees.

The trust document provides for circumstances when he can be stripped of his status as trustee, which includes mental incapacity. Two neurologists (a private one and one at UCLA) found him impaired by Alzheimer's, and by the terms of the trust Shelly Sterling immediately became the sole trustee. Note that the money is still held in trust for his benefit (as specified in the trust document).

Shelly is the one who executed the sale -- without Donald's input or agreement, as she's allowed to do by the trust document.

Note that he could challenge the finding of incapacity by the trust, although usually that is a very high hurdle to climb depending on the trust document wording. The trust can also set a much lower level of incapacity than in general law. So he may not be able to be committed but still be unable to execute as a trustee.

least of all Sterling and the players in the league.

in the privacy of your own home, nobody has the right to destroy your life and livelihood when someone records you surreptitiously and posts your private conversation online. Seriously, if anybody posted a private conversation I had in my own home and posted it online, I'd hire a private dick to find out who they were and go after them for everything they had. And if someone else used that information to destroy my business, I'd go after whoever destroyed my business as a result.

He has no right to sully the NBA with his disgusting racist views, but he obviously wasn't trying to do it. He was speaking privately with his personal assistant/girlfriend (whoever she is) on the phone in the privacy of his own home. Violating privacy should not be tolerated in any way, shape, or form, and the results of said violation should not be tolerated as well.

I hope he loses the law suit because he's an ass, but if he does, it sends a dangerous message regarding right to privacy in this country.

Discrimination lawsuits
In February 2003, the Housing Rights Center of Los Angeles filed a housing discrimination case against Sterling on behalf of 18 tenants. The lawsuit featured several racist statements allegedly made by Sterling to employees, such as that "black people smell and attract vermin" and "hispanics just smoke and hang around the building" as well as Sterling's alleged intent to rent only to Korean tenants because "they will pay the rent and live in whatever conditions I give them." Part of the HRC case's resolution included U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer awarding the plaintiffs' attorney $4.9 million in attorneys fees. While the final terms for the plaintiffs were confidential, the judge said the fees were justified as the settlement obtained by the plaintiffs against Sterling was one of the largest of its kind and the public benefit terms were significant and wide-ranging.

In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice then sued Sterling for housing discrimination for using race as a factor in filling some of his apartment buildings. The suit charged that Sterling refused to rent to non-Koreans in the Koreatown neighborhood and to African Americans in Beverly Hills.[76] In November 2009, ESPN reported that Sterling agreed to pay a fine of $2.7 million to settle claims brought by the Justice Department and Davin Day of Newport Beach[citation needed] that Sterling engaged in discriminatory rental practices against Hispanics, blacks, and families with children.[77]

In February 2009, Sterling was sued by former longtime Clippers executive Elgin Baylor for employment discrimination on the basis of age and race.[78] The lawsuit alleged that Sterling told Baylor that he wanted to fill his team with "poor black boys from the South and a white head coach".[76] The plaintiffs alleged that during negotiations for Danny Manning, Sterling said "I'm offering a lot of money for a poor black kid."[76][79] The suit also alleged that "the Caucasian head coach was given a four-year, $22-million contract" while Baylor's salary had "been frozen at a comparatively paltry $350,000 since 2003".[78]

Sexual harassment lawsuits
In 1996, Christine Jaksy, a property management consultant for Sterling who also did work for the Clippers, sued Sterling for sexual harassment, claiming she quit her job after he repeatedly offered her money for sex, and asked her to recruit sexual partners for him.[80][81] Sterling countersued, and the two eventually reached a confidential settlement in 1998.[81]

Sumner Davenport, a property supervisor for Sterling who was fired in 2002, sued him in 2003 for sexual harassment for "unwanted and offensive physical conduct."[82] She lost the case at a jury trial two years later.[81][83]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sterling

But it seems the recordings were the last straw.

Players couldn't do shit about it because

A. The owners have the power, players who rock the boat limit their ability to make a living.

B. Until recently the players who wound up at the Clippers were mostly cheaper, marginal players who had even less power or platform than most.

C. The media wouldn't touch it without a recording. Sterling is a lawyer by trade and has long had a reputation as the Al Davis of the NBA- if you crossed him he'd tie you up in court for years, just to make a point.

Just way too much invasion of privacy and publication of such. I hope he wins the lawsuit though.

(who assisted him with more than his correspondence and bags, apparently) to record him when he would have conversations because he had a problem with forgetting shit. Talk about an accident waiting to happen, but apparently he was so forgetful he couldn't remember to record himself....?

http://www.tmz.com/2014/04/27/donald-sterling-racist-audio-v-stiviano-recorded-clippers/

It is all to easy to dog-pile on Sterling because his views are so contemptible. But now that everyone has a mobile recording device in the form of a cellphone are we going to have to censor our own speech lest it be used against us?

Neither one are going to go away quietly. Her being allowed to have any part in the organization is fucking ludicrous. The entire family needs to be dropped off on island where there are cameras and put a big stack of their money in the middle and watch them kill each other over it. Never underestimate what rich people are capable of.

even though it's reprinting an AP story, let's not link to Foxnews.com or Washingtontimes.com for AP news articles. You may remember back in the mid-2000s when Breitbart.com was frequently linked in DU because of the site hosting AP articles.

Original AP story: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/attorney-donald-sterling-says-no-deal-suit

ESPN LA report: http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/11059020/donald-sterling-decides-pursue-1-billion-lawsuit-nba-all

Could you edit your link please? Thank you for your consideration. I prefer that DU not give right wing sites any more traffic than they already do.

What more better way to go out than doing what your love (he must be figuring). The dude lives for moments like these. It's the old adage, that he who is unhappy in their life will go on doing that and making and sharing that same unhappiness with everyone else.

He might be racist and all that but more than anything he is jealous and wants to be bigger and more famous than the players on the payroll even if it's in a negative light. Anybody that was expecting this guy to quietly into the night are now adjusting to the way things really are. Ignoring this guy and minimizing his effect is the quickest way to make it go away.

Let's see how much they are worth when they are no longer an NBA team.

Donald Sterling forgets that while you can fuck over people in this world, you cannot fuck over corporations. So long as the NBA holds strong, Sterling will lose.