NBA Legend Dominique Wilkins Admitted Donald Sterling’s Ownership Always Bothered Him
When businessman Donald Sterling owned the Los Angeles Clippers, he constantly earned a bad rep.
Most of it was due to the favoritism he always showed.
NBA legend Dominique Wilkins witnessed it first hand while playing for the Clippers.
In a recent interview on DJ Vlad’s VladTV, Wilkins said Sterling’s ownership bothered him, especially when he helped San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson earn the 1993-94 scoring title.
“A lot of things [bothered me],” Wilkins said. “One of the things I remembered at the end of the year, playing against the San Antonio Spurs and Bob Weiss came into the locker room. He said ‘Look, I don’t want y’all to get alarmed but I’ve been told to take all you guys out after the first four minutes of the first quarter.’ And I’m like ‘What?’. He said ‘Donald Sterling wants to see David Robinson keep the scoring title in the West. He didn’t want Shaquille O’Neal to get it in the East.’ I said ‘Last time I checked, neither guy played on our team, so who cares?’. And so, yeah, he took us out with four minutes to start at the game and David Robinson had 71. Crazy.”
The game he’s talking about took place on Apr. 24, 1994. Robinson scored a career-high 71 points while Wilkins had just 16 in the 21 minutes. With an average of 29 points, Robinson was set to win his only scoring title.
Eventually, his wrongdoings caught up with him when he was recorded making racist remarks during a conversation. Ultimately, it led to him being fined $2.5 million and banned from the NBA for life.
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Cory Nelson is a contributor to Inside The Heat. He attended Northern Virginia Community College. He can be reached at corymckenzienelson@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @CKenzyNelson. You can also check out his personal blog HERE.
