Donald Sterling’s racism was so deep that it affected white players as well as black players. His thought process that black players were only good for being athletes was so extreme he basically didn’t think white players could even play.
The story has been floating around about how he almost nixed the deal for JJ Redick because he didn’t want to pay a white player he felt was inferior to the black players. Redick recalls what happened during that time to USA Today.
“I’ve been told both ways: one, that he didn’t want to pay me because I was white, and that he didn’t want to pay me because I was a bench player,” Redick, the former Duke University star told USA Today. “I didn’t know until after the face. I just got a weird phone call from Doc (Rivers) on July 4, and I got off the phone and said to my wife, ‘Something’s going on.’ He’s like, ‘You better play for me (expletive).’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the plan. We figured this out two days ago, right?’
Redick continued: “And then he just rambled a bit … but he never really got into the nuts and bolts of what was happening. And then I got a call about 48 hours later from my agent, and he said, ‘We wanted to keep you out of it, but here’s what happened.’”
“[I]n the days after, it was the first time in my life where I was conscientious of the fact that the people I was talking to were black or Asian or Mexican,” Redick told USA Today. “I don’t look at people like that, so to hear those things come out of someone’s mouth, it pisses you off.”
Now we know Donald Sterling is an equal opportunity racist.