Sterling Fallout: Who's the Hypocrite? Take Your Pick

Published on 1-Jun-2014 by Stacey Mickles

Basketball - NBA    NBA Daily Update

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Sterling Fallout: Who's the Hypocrite? Take Your Pick

The news media in this country owes a lot to a comedy show.

That's right. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart made a practice out of comparing some buffoon's recent quote with a past quote to call attention to the blatant hyprocrisy on display. Do know the hosts of Fox News have long since retired the title of tomato can.

Ultimately, the serious news outlets caught on to the technique themselves. That's good, because there's enough hypocrisy in this world to keep all of them busy 24/7.

ESPN's Outside the Lines is one of many that found Donald Sterling to be an easy target for this. But their video clip also hints at what's been rumbling in the background of this story for quite a while, which is that the banned Clippers owner didn't have a monopoly on hypocrisy.

So here's the thing: racism is outrageous. It was also outrageous yesterday, last year, last decade, and last any-time-frame you want to mention.

During most of those time frames, Donald Sterling owned the Clips. His position surely wasn't any secret. And yet, he kept owning the team and African-Americans kept playing for that team. Why? Were they OK with it as long as he didn't make his opinions public?

Isn't that hypocrisy, too?

Isn't it obvious that the league poobahs and players only did something about Sterling because, this time, they couldn't just whistle past the graveyard like they always have and no doubt would've continued to do?

And then when Mark Cuban raises questions about the way the NBA was proceeding legally, he gets branded as a hypocrite! Really? Whether the league wants to admit it or not, Sterling could well have won the lawsuit he was ready to file. And how would the league have looked then?

The term stupid comes to mind. The issue of racism would've been buried under the embarrassment.

Moreover, Cuban gets criticized for planning to do what his moral compass tells him, which was that the league might be biting off more issues than it can handle and setting a foreboding precedent. Yes, he was crass in how he stated his intentions:

F**k ’em. I don’t care if nobody shows up to games. If I think the ethical thing to do is to vote against 29 other guys, I will.

But how does someone get scorched for bagging political correctness, not worrying about making waves, and following his conscience?

If more of the league's movers and shakers had had the guts to do that years ago, Sterling would've been long gone by now.

And we'd have one dose less of hyprocisy.