NBA

The Sterling standard

Donald Sterling comes off badly in the audio recordings in which he tells his girlfriend not to associate publicly with African-Americans. Now he’s paying for it.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced Tuesday the longtime Los Angeles Clippers owner will be fined $2.5 million and banned from the league for life. Silver will also recommend that the NBA board force Sterling to sell his team.

Then again, no one in this tale comes out looking good.

Start with Sterling’s mistress, Vanesa Stiviano, who secretly taped him to gain leverage in a lawsuit filed by Sterling’s wife basically accusing her of being a gold digger.

Then there’s the NBA, which now professes shock at views known for years.

And let’s not forget the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, whose Los Angeles branch has withdrawn what would have been Sterling’s second lifetime achievement award.

Surely the NAACP knew his views, not to mention the lawsuits accusing him of housing discrimination against blacks.

As NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it at Time.com: “What bothers me about this whole Donald Sterling affair isn’t just his racism. I’m bothered that everyone acts as if it’s a huge surprise.”

In the end, the NBA concluded that having an owner of a mostly African-American team saying he doesn’t want his African-American girlfriend bringing African-Americans into his arena wasn’t good for its highly lucrative brand.

We shed no tears for Donald Sterling — and wish a similar justice for all those rushing to denounce a man whose views they were willing to overlook so long as his money was flowing.