nuckin_futz

Here are all the shockingly awful Donald Sterling stories that the NBA ignored for years Donald Sterling's tenure as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers has been loaded with allegations of racism and generally deplorable behavior. While the overtness and tone of the racism on the tape that leaked this weekend are shocking, it's no surprise that Donald Sterling said horrible things about black people. The NBA, under David Stern, tolerated it for years. In a 2009 wrongful-termination lawsuit that was eventually rejected by a jury, former Clippers general manager and NBA legend Elgin Baylor claimed that Sterling had a "plantation mentality." From Baylor's lawsuit: In the suit, Baylor also claimed that three top Clippers players — Sam Cassell, Elton Brand, and Corey Maggette — complained to him that Sterling was bringing women into the locker room to look at the players, and once said to one of the women, " Look at those beautiful black bodies." “[sterling] said, 'Personally, I would like to have a white Southern coach coaching poor black players.' And I was shocked. And he looked at me and said, ‘Do you think that’s a racist statement?' I said, 'Absolutely. That’s plantation mentality.'" In 2006, the Department of Justice brought housing-discrimination charges against Sterling for allegedly refusing to rent to African-Americans at his Los Angeles residential complexes. The suit was settled three years later for a record $2.75 million, with Sterling avoiding an admission of liability. In sworn testimony, one of Sterling's top property supervisors Sumner Davenport claimed he made racist comments about black people living in one of the buildings he had just acquired: Davenport also told a story about Sterling saying "just evict the b----" when a black tenant complained about water damage (via ESPN's Peter Keating): "That's because of all the blacks in this building, they smell, they're not clean. ... And it's because of all of the Mexicans that just sit around and smoke and drink all day." "Kandynce Jones' refrigerator dripped, her dishwasher was broken, and her apartment was always cold. Now it had flooded. Davenport reported what she saw to Sterling, and according to her testimony, he asked: 'Is she one of those black people that stink?' When Davenport told Sterling that Jones wanted to be reimbursed for the water damage and compensated for her ruined property, he replied: 'I am not going to do that. Just evict the b****.'" In a 1983 incident, prospective Clippers coaching candidate Rollie Massimino says that Sterling used the N-word in an impromptu interview at LAX (via Jeff Pearlman): “Here’s this guy, and he has this blonde bimbo with him, they have a bottle of champagne, they’re tanked. And Don looks at me and he says, ‘I wanna know why you think you can coach these n*****s.’” Sterling also has a history of saying strange and insensitive statements about women. In a 2003 lawsuit against a former mistress, Sterling talked about paying the woman $500 every time they had sex: "When you pay a woman for sex, you are not together with her. You're paying her for a few moments to use her body for sex. Is it clear? Is it clear?" There's also this absurd exchange, from that same deposition (via Deadspin): View photo . Deadspin Beyond racism, Sterling has a history of gross behavior. Like the time in 2004 when he refused to pay for an assistant coach's $70,000 prostate-cancer surgery (which the Clippers players eventually paid for out of their own pockets). Or the time he heckled Baron Davis, his own player, so mercilessly that it broke his spirit. Davis told The New York Post in 2012: "I just stopped liking basketball. And then you dribbling down the court and having the owner like cuss at you and call you an idiot. I didn't even look forward to coming to the games, and if the owner [Donald Sterling] came to the game, I definitely was not gonna have a good game because it was just like, how do you play when the main heckler in the gym is the owner of the team, and he's telling you how much he hates you and calling out your name?" The NBA never disciplined Sterling for these incidents. In fact, it went out of its way to establish his team as one of the league's marquee franchises by vetoing the Chris Paul trade and eventually rerouting the star point guard to the Clippers. NBA commissioner Adam Silver pleaded ignorance when asked about Sterling's past behavior at his press conference this weekend. Silver has worked at the NBA since 1992. It's impossible to believe he doesn't know Sterling's history. The league has ignored Sterling for decades, tolerating him in the hopes that he'd never do something to embarrass the league on a mainstream level. Now that the bombshell has dropped and derailed the NBA playoffs, the league has only itself to blame. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/shockingly-awful-donald-sterling-stories-140632940.html **************************************************** The NBA did not deal with this dolt years ago when they should have. Now they get a big black eye for their trouble. The last lines from his deposition had me in stitches. What an imbecile.

NAACP drops honor for Clippers owner over 'racist' recording (Reuters) - The NAACP civil rights group will not honor Donald Sterling with a lifetime achievement award after the Los Angeles Clippers owner was allegedly caught making racially disparaging comments, the organization's head said on Sunday. Sterling was severely criticized after the celebrity news site TMZ.com on Friday posted a 10-minute recording in which a person reported to be the NBA owner tells a woman not to post photographs of herself with black people online and not to bring African-Americans to Clippers games. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the oldest civil rights organization in the United States, had planned to give Sterling a lifetime achievement award at its May 15 banquet. "He is not receiving a lifetime achievement award from the NAACP that's coming up in the next few weeks," Lorraine Miller, the organization's interim president and chief executive, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" TV show. The NBA has said it was investigating the audio recording, described by Commissioner Adam Silver as "truly offensive and disturbing". President Barack Obama weighed in, saying on Sunday the comments were "incredibly offensive racist statements". "When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk," Obama said when asked about the controversy during a news conference in Kuala Lumpur with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Players and coaches with the Clippers, which take on the Golden State Warriors in a playoff on Sunday, had discussed boycotting the game to protest the comments allegedly made by Sterling, Yahoo Sports reported. MICHAEL JORDAN 'APPALLED' NBA great Michael Jordan said in a statement: "I am appalled that this type of ignorance still exists within our country and at the highest levels of our sport. "In a league where the majority of players are African-American, we cannot and must not tolerate discrimination at any level," he said. It was not immediately clear when or how the conversation was recorded. Clippers President Andy Roeser issued a statement on Saturday saying he had listened to the recording on TMZ. "We do not know if it is legitimate or if it has been altered. We do know that the woman on the tape - who we believe released it to TMZ - is the defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Sterling family," he said. The recording appears to be an argument between Sterling and a model who uses the name V. Stiviano about photographs posted to the social networking website Instagram. "People call you and tell you that I have black people on my Instagram. And it bothers you," the voice alleged to be Stiviano's says, according to a version of the recording at TMZ.com. She also says she herself is of Latino and black heritage. "Yeah, it bothers me a lot that you want to promo ... broadcast that you're associating with black people. Do you have to?" the voice alleged to be Sterling's says, according to TMZ. Sterling is also allegedly heard telling the woman not to post photos of herself with Earvin "Magic" Johnson, another giant of the NBA. "And don't bring him to my games, OK?" The Clippers' statement said Sterling was "upset and apologizes" for the sentiments attributed to him about Johnson. "Mr Sterling is emphatic that what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings. It is the antithesis of who he is, what he believes and how he has lived his life," the statement said. Sterling, who made his fortune in real estate, has not made any public comment. He has faced allegations of discriminatory conduct in the past. In 2009, he paid $2.7 million to settle a case brought by the U.S. Justice Department which accused him of housing discrimination against blacks and Hispanics. http://sports.yahoo.com/news/naacp-drops-honor-clippers-owner-over-racist-recording-185018620--nba.html ********************************************* How completely clueless is the NAACP? The guy has a well documented history of making bigoted remarks, implementing bigoted policies and they were going to give him a Lifetime Achievement award.

South Van Island. Didn't feel a thing.

Reminded me of this. It's funny because it's true.

Edler should change his number to -23 next year

Met her in Boston during during the finals. Nice gal. My buddy and I wound up having dinner with her mom and her boyfriend/husband and another guy they were with at Fours before game 3. Nice people.

I find since I started cheering for the Oilers about an hour ago I feel a lot dumber. I seem to have lost my ability to do simple arithmetic. Is this normal?

Yessssssss. Man I feel so dirty cheering for the Oilers.

Samuelsson was invisible in the playoffs? In 09-10 he played 12 playoff games for the Canucks and scored 8 goals and added 7 assists for 15 points and was +7. I wish all our guys were that kind of invisible. In 10-11 he was less effective because he was hurt. He missed the last 2 rounds. SN taking out the trash.

He gets less than market value contracts because he doles out NTC's like Halloween candy. Now the team is handcuffed with old farts who can refuse to move. Signing Sundin was boss? is "Boss" a foreign word for stupid? 2 years@ 10 million a season. He's lucky Sundin only took him up on 1/4 of that because otherwise he'd never of had the cap space to bring on Ehrhoff. It was not "boss" it was reckless and foolish.

PBOC Rule Means Bitcoin Websites in China Must Close, Expert Says Central bank told banks and payment firms to shut accounts of site operators, a move one analyst says means traders have to leave country. (Beijing) – The central bank has taken a step that at least one expert says means all bitcoin trading websites in the country must close. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) renewed its crackdown on bitcoins by requiring banks and payment companies to close all the accounts opened by the operators of websites that trade in the virtual currency by April 15. This means people will only be able to use cash to buy bitcoins, an analyst who has been following the matter said, and will force all trading websites in the country to close. "The only one way out for bitcoin websites is moving their servers abroad and using the service of foreign banks and payment companies," the expert said. The requirement, which Caixin saw in a document the central bank's headquarters recently sent to regional offices, says money can be taken from the accounts before the deadline, but no deposits can be made. Banks that fail to close the accounts will be punished, the PBOC said, but it did not elaborate on what those punishments would be. The central bank document listed 15 trading websites whose accounts must be closed. The regulator and four other central government agencies jointly issued a circular last year that prohibited payment companies and financial institutions from providing services to bitcoin trading platforms. The circular said bitcoins are a commodity, not a currency. It added that investors are free to trade in bitcoins at their own risk, but should know they cannot be used as legal tender. Bitcoins are created by computers linked in a network. To get them, a person can either make a purchase on a trading platform or become a "miner," who uses a computer to process data generated when other miners and traders create and trade bitcoins. The value of bitcoins rode a rollercoaster last year as demand fluctuated. The highs exceeded 8,000 yuan per unit and the lows dipped to only several hundred yuan. Prices on March 27 were around 3,500 yuan per bitcoin. Experts estimate that transactions on Chinese bitcoin trading platforms account for about 60 percent of the global total. Mt. Gox, once the world's largest exchange, filed for bankruptcy in February. http://english.caixin.com/2014-03-27/100657518.html

Liquidity has nothing to do with volatility? You cannot be serious? Liquidity has everything to do with price and volatility. As to markets being rigged. Rigged is a strong word. However, there are rules in place to maintain an orderly market and dampen volatility. So yes, markets are rigged to a certain extent. Rules such as the new downtick rule. If a stock drops more than 10% in a single session it is no longer shortable on a downtick for the rest of that session as well as all of the next day. If a stock moves up more than 10% in a day there are no restrictions on buying it. That is rigging the market right there. If a single stock moves more than 10% in a 5 minute period (up or down) trading in that stock is halted for 5 minutes. There's circuit breakers for the market as a whole. The yardstick is the S&P. Trading will halt for predetermined amounts of time if the S&P drops 7, 13 or 20% in a single day. At 7 and 13% drops all trading ceases for 15 minutes. At a 20% drop trading is halted for the remainder of that session. From 1987-2007 you had "program trading curbs" that kicked in when the Dow Industrials moved 2% in either direction. The curbs restricted the trading of automated programs. Look up what a "Liquidity Replenishment Point" (LRP) is. https://usequities.nyx.com/sites/usequities.nyx.com/files/fact_sheet_lrp.pdf Even futures markets have "lock limits". Those are there to dampen volatility and extreme price swings. There's many more examples but that's enough. Do I need to get into more detail regarding the responsibilities of market makers? None of these exist in the BTC world.

It's like you don't even read the posts you're responding to. From the very post you quoted: #2) Both FB and coffee futures are 2 sided markets. With market makers who have actual responsibilities like providing liquidity and maintaining an orderly market place. So comparing volatility between them is lunacy. As for the comment about idiots. Participating in something where you do not know the rules or have a decent understanding of the dangers involved is idiocy. What else would you call it? I know very little about sailing. If I were to pilot my own boat I'd be an idiot.

What is the difference between Facebook stock, coffee futures and BTC? #1) FB stock and Coffee futures are REGULATED. While BTC is NOT. I honestly do not understand why some of you refuse to accept this as a serious issue. #2) Both FB and coffee futures are 2 sided markets. With market makers who have actual responsibilities like providing liquidity and maintaining an orderly market place. So comparing volatility between them is lunacy. The more idiots involved in financial markets the better it is for those who have a clue. The great thing is no matter how many get cleaned out, more just keep showing. Like idiots at a poker table. ****************************************** More good news for BTC groupies............. IRS says bitcoins are taxable property, but not currency People love referring to Bitcoin as a "cryptocurrency," but the Internal Revenue Service looks at it a little differently. According to a new IRS statement, Bitcoin should be considered property, not currency. What does that mean for US Bitcoin aficionados? Quite a bit, actually. Consider your growing stash of bitcoins. If you're the type who mines for bitcoins, the market value of what you receive counts as part of your gross income... just in time for tax season, naturally. Conducting commerce with Bitcoin may have become much trickier on the small scale, too. You have to deal with capital gains and losses for Bitcoin transactions if the value of those bitcoins fluctuates (doesn't it always?). Bloomberg explains what this means well: Under the ruling, purchasing a $2 cup of coffee with bitcoins bought for $1 would trigger $1 in capital gains for the coffee drinker and $2 of income for the coffee shop. Reporting those gains and losses may not be too troublesome for big, infrequent exchanges, but businesses that deal with plenty of smaller ones could have plenty of record keeping to do. And if you're a business that (for some reason) pays employees with bitcoins, that virtual wage is subject to income tax withholding. If those employees didn't get W-2s before, voilà -- they need 'em now. Long story short, bitcoin owners: Start keeping track of everything lest the taxman take issue with your methods and come poking around. http://www.engadget.com/2014/03/25/bitcoins-are-property/?ncid=rss_truncated

^^^ Holly is very under rated.

It's just Roberto? That would be awesome. We could pummel him with shots all game long. We be sure get more than 3 or 4 that way and maybe even get a W.

They must stay for one more year. They are our ticket to Connor McDavid. They can go after next year.

As Papayas stated there are no regulations to stop MTGox from doing what it did. It is a completely unregulated industry. Today FINRA issued an alert regarding BTC. It can be found here: http://www.finra.org...ndScams/P456458 All the feds can do is charge them for violating existing laws such as fraud or charge them with theft, or wire fraud etc. They cannot stop them from operating the exchanges. If you lost money in MTGox you're only recourse is to sue civilly in Japanese court. Good luck with that. Trading volume in BTC is low for a reason. There is only a certain amount of BTC. Unlike the USD which is created endlessly. Unless more BTC is created the volume will never increase much and it will always be thinly traded and volatile. However, creating more will dilute the value of each coin. It would be wise to split the coins ala a stock split but since it's unregulated you'll never see that happen as there's "too many cooks"/exchanges so to speak to agree on anything. As for it having it's merits an a currency. Warren Buffet who is a pretty knowledgeable guy had this to say about BTC...... "NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bitcoin is "not a currency" because it doesn't meet the criteria of a currency, including being a store of value, said Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett. In an interview on CNBC Monday, the American business magnate said that he would not be surprised if bitcoin is not around in 10 or 20 years because it is used as a speculative bet. The price of bitcoin is inevitably based on the value of the dollar he said, which means that it is not a currency in and of itself" http://www.marketwat...ency-2014-03-03 Nouriel Roubini was the latest to take a dump on BTC. .......... "Roubini tweets dismissively of bitcoin, calls it Ponzi scheme" ......... "New York University professor of economics and markets guru Nouriel Roubini has whipped up a Twitter frenzy aimed at bitcoin and its advocates. Roubini’s consistently bearish economic views have earned him the nickname “Dr. Doom” but he is not a man to be ignored. In early 2007, Roubini accurately predicted that a collapsing US housing market would trigger a worldwide recession. On Sunday, the guru tweeted that “apart from a base 4 [for] criminal activities, bitcoin is not a currency as it is not a unit of account or a means of payments or store of value”. He elaborated first that the self-styled crypto-currency is not a unit of account because prices of goods and services are not first set in bitcoins, nor they would ever be. Taking the argument further, Roubini asserted that bitcoin isn’t a means of payment because there are only a handful of transactions with the e-currency. “And given its volatility all who accept it convert it right back into $/€/¥”, he pointed out. Any retailer accepting BTC in payment is likely to convert them immediately into traditional fiat currencies since the huge price volatility of bitcoin implies equally sizeable market risk. Rounding off his argument, Roubini said that bitcoin isn't a store of value because comparatively little wealth is currently held in the product and it has no asset backing. And the volatility of bitcoin’s exchange rate with the USD makes it “a lousy store of value”. http://invezz.com/ne...it-ponzi-scheme

DeNiro how is this franchise going to sign a top line winger? Sure it would be nice but how? Unless they're from BC I don't see anyone wanting to come here. Take Vanek for example. How do we convince him to play here? Assuming no changes are made. Conversation would go like this. MG "Vanek we'd like to give you a bag of money to come play for us" Vanek "Hmmm I like money, but I can pretty much get a huge amount from 5-6 teams" Vanek "I hear your owner likes to meddle in hockey affairs" MG "Umm yeah he's a big fan" Vanek "Wasn't your coach suspended for like 6 games? and isn't he kind of thought of as a big nut case?" MG "Umm yeah he's a hoot, hey you like blocking shots?" Vanek "Isn't your team kinda falling apart?" MG "It's a process" Vanek - Click MG "Tommy, Tommy you there?" "Hmmm line must have dropped. Lawrence get Vanek back on line 2"

Imagine a full season at this pace? McDavid would be gift wrapped to us.

If you're Henrik and you see guys dogging it (not saying anyone is) how can you possibly call them out? A one dimensional captain is just that.