LeBron James and other players won’t play next season if Donald Sterling is still an NBA owner, according to Roger Mason Jr., vice president of the NBA Players Association.
Mason told “Jim Rome on Showtime” this week that the players are united in boycotting the league next season if Sterling isn’t removed as Clippers owner. The NBA owners committee met for the third time this week to discuss ousting Sterling.
“If it’s not handled by … the start of next season, I don’t see how we’re playing basketball,” Mason said. “I was just in the locker room with LeBron … At the end of the day, you know we have leaders. We have player reps, we’ve got executive committee members … Leaders of the teams, they’re all saying the same thing, ‘If this man is still in place, we ain’t playing.'”
Rome went on to ask: “So your guy LeBron, you think he would not play if Sterling were still in there when the [next] season started?”
“I was just in the locker room three or four days ago. LeBron and I talked about it,” Mason added. “He ain’t playing if Sterling is still an owner.”
When asked about how players would react if Sterling’s wife is kept on as an owner, Mason said: “There’s no place for that family in the NBA.”
Both Donald and Shelly Sterling have said they will do everything within their legal rights to fight being removed as owners, and if either of them sues — or if they both do — what will happen if next season comes around and the Sterling saga still isn’t settled? Will the players actually sit out? That’s a nightmare scenario that new Commissioner Adam Silver, praised for how he’s handled Sterling so far, could be helpless to avoid.
Back in April, the Golden State Warriors had a dramatic boycott planned for their playoff game against the Los Angeles Clippers had Silver not handed down an adequate punishment of Sterling.
After Silver announced that Sterling would be banned from the league for life, however, the game went on as planned.
Sterling broke his silence in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday, speaking for the first time since audio of him making racist remarks was released. Sterling told Cooper he hoped the league would forgive him for his mistake and give him another chance.
This story originally appeared on FoxSports.com.