Ramona Shelburne of ESPN has dropped her version of a #WOJBOMB. According to her sources, experts have labeled banished Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling “mentally incapacitated”.
Espn has learned that experts had declared Donald Sterling mentally incapacitated, leaving Shelly as sole trustee & power to sell the team
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 30, 2014
The Sterling Family Trust had rules & guidelines about mental incapacitation. Very recently, Donald was found by experts to be incapacitated
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 30, 2014
Once that happened, Shelly became sole trustee and had power to do deal w/ Ballmer, which is now being sent directly to the NBA for approval
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 30, 2014
The rules of the Sterling family trust did not require a court to declare Donald Sterling mentally incapacitated.
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) May 30, 2014
Shelburne’s array of tweets explain why the Clippers sale happened expeditiously. Prior to the information that Steve Ballmer had submitted a bid worth $2.1 billion dollars, Donald Sterling wavered back in forth, not sure if he wanted to sell the team or fight the NBA in court. With the inability to control the direction of the franchise, especially before the NBA was able to determine themselves that he was unfit to carry out a lawsuit against the league.
In an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters, Donald’s wife in Shelly Sterling hinted at the possibility that her husband suffered from dementia, a broad category of brain diseases that cause long term loss of the ability to think and reason clearly that is severe enough to affect a person’s daily functioning.
“I — in my opinion, I think he — it’s the onset of dementia. I said, ‘Well, this is the tape.’ And he says, ‘Hmm. I don’t remember it.'” “That’s when I thought he had dementia.”
You never love to hear things such as this, but it’s extremely hard to feel sympathetic from a racist owner who openly discriminates against minorities and his own employees.
With Sterling out of the picture, the Clippers sale will likely move forward without much hesitation on the legal side of the argument. There’s a chance that this thing is all done by the end of the offseason.