Mark Cuban has been extremely careful about addressing the Donald Sterling situation since the first audio recording surfaced, which is unusual for the typically outspoke Dallas Mavericks owner. He finally broke his silence on Monday. While Cuban blasted Sterling for his racist views and called what he said “abhorrent,” he also said kicking the Los Angeles Clippers owner out of the NBA would be a “slippery slope.”
“What Donald said was wrong,” Cuban told Brad Townsend of The Dallas Morning News. “It was abhorrent. There’s no place for racism in the NBA, any business I’m associated with, and I don’t want to be associated with people who have that position.
“But at the same time, that’s a decision I make. I think you’ve got to be very, very careful when you start making blanket statements about what people say and think, as opposed to what they do. It’s a very, very slippery slope.”
Cuban seemed to be hinting at protecting freedom of speech. He has a point — people just don’t want to hear it right now. I’m not saying Sterling shouldn’t be kicked out of the league, but I understand Cuban being concerned with the precedent it sets.
“Again, there’s no excuse for his positions,” Cuban added. “There’s no excuse for what he said. There’s no excuse for anybody to support racism. There’s no place for it in our league, but there’s a very, very, very slippery slope.
“If it’s about racism and we’re ready to kick people out of the league, OK? Then what about homophobia? What about somebody who doesn’t like a particular religion. What about somebody who’s anti-semitic What about a xenophobe? In this country, people are allowed to be morons.”
The bigger issue here is that Sterling has a checkered history. We knew he was racist before V. Stiviano allegedly recorded him making mind-boggling comments about how he gives his players cars, food and houses. He doesn’t deserve to be a team owner anyway, so I don’t think it’s as slippery a slope as Cuban thinks. Sterling needs to go for reasons beyond his most recent racist rant.
