Clippers owner Donald Sterling lashes out at NBA leadership

Donald Sterling continued to levy a verbal attack on the NBA, calling Commissioner Adam Silver and its leaders “despicable monsters� while laying out his reasons for contesting the sale of the Clippers.

In a statement released Tuesday by one of his lawyers, Sterling said he was fighting for free speech and the right to privacy while continuing to battle the NBA.

Sterling said the NBA’s leadership was “incompetent, inexperienced and angry,� a reference to the lifetime ban and $2.5-million fine he was assessed by Silver in April.

Sterling’s wife, Shelly, reached an agreement last week to sell the team to former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer for an NBA-record $2 billion.

“The NBA is a band of hypocrites and bullies,� Sterling said in Tuesday’s statement released through attorney Bobby Samini. “They will not stop until someone stands up. They have taken the liberty to desecrate my private rights and my right to own property. I have no doubt that they will continue to find new ways to violate my rights and the rights of any other person in order to draw attention away from their own discriminatory and repulsive conduct.

“We have to fight for the rights of all Americans. We have to fight these despicable monsters.�

Sterling said the NBA was involved in gender-based discriminatory lawsuits filed by league employees in the past.

“The reason Adam Silver is focused on the sale, instead [of] the larger social issue, is because doing so would require him to examine the NBA’s own discriminatory practices, including those that occurred under his many years of leadership,� Sterling said, adding that Silver had been with the NBA since 1992. “If the NBA is sincere about their approach, Adam Silver needs to publicly examine the NBA’s own conduct and the conduct of each and every owner.�

Sterling has filed a $1-billion lawsuit against the NBA and has not signed off on his wife’s agreement with Ballmer. Shelly Sterling, though, plans to have her attorneys go to court Wednesday to ask a judge to sign off on her takeover of a family trust, an action she used to clear the way for her sale of the franchise.