Sterling's Estranged Wife Pledges To Keep Stake In Clippers
LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — In her first interview since the NBA banned her estranged husband, Shelly Sterling says she will fight to keep her share of the Los Angeles Clippers and plans one day to divorce Donald Sterling.
Shelly Sterling spoke to Barbara Walters, and ABC News posted a short story with excerpts from the conversation Sunday.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Donald Sterling for making racist comments and urged owners to force Sterling to sell the team.
Sunday evening, the NBA's Mike Bass issued a statement that said, "Under the NBA constitution, if a controlling owner's interest is terminated by a three-fourths vote, all other team owners' interests are automatically terminated as well. It doesn't matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team."
Pierce O'Donnell, Shelly Sterling's attorney then issued a statement responding to the NBA's constitutional argument.
"We do not agree with the league's self-serving interpretation of its constitution, its application to Shelly Sterling or its validity under these unique circumstances. We live in a nation of laws. California law and the United States Constitution trump any such interpretation," O'Donnell wrote.
COMPLETE COVERAGE: CLIPPERS OWNER CONTROVERSY
According to ABC's story, Shelly Sterling told Walters: "I will fight that decision."
Sterling also said that she "eventually" will divorce her husband, and that she hadn't yet done so due to financial considerations.
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