It can't be fun to be Donald T. Sterling these days.
The real estate mogul and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers admitted in an interview with T.J. Simers of the Los Angeles Times something all of us already knew. The NBA is a players' league.
Never has that been proven more recently than yesterday when Chris Paul let it be known that the deal between the Clippers and the Celtics for Doc Rivers and Kevin Garnett needed to be consummated.
Now comes news that the Clippers need to do damage control with the face of the franchise, Blake Griffin.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported this morning on the Dennis & Callahan program on WEEI-FM 93.9 Boston that Griffin is upset with his name being mentioned in conjunction with trade rumors for free-agent center Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers.
I've reported in the past that Griffin and other Clipper players were unhappy with the unprecedented power wielded by free-agent PG Paul. It's been reported widely that Paul and Howard have been having discussions about playing together. Those reports would have Griffin and Eric Bledsoe going to the Lakers for Howard in a sign-and-trade deal.
Sterling, who is known for his frugality, is already in the position of having to pay Rivers up to $8 million annually for his services as well as the cost of Garnett's and, possibly, Paul Pierce's contract. This doesn't even begin to include the cost of Paul's free-agent re-signing.
Now, if the organization intends to retain him, the Clippers (and Paul, I would imagine) will have to do damage control to repair the relationship between Paul and Griffin.
The Clippers are getting to be almost as much of a soap opera as the Lakers.
And so it goes.
