HOOP PIPE DREAMS : Donald T. Sterling Envisions Himself as Owner of a Winner in a New, Filled Arena in L.A., but Reality Is That He Owns Clippers

Donald T. Sterling, the son of a pushcart peddler, is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He runs an empire from his gold-trimmed alabaster-and-marble building in the heart of Beverly Hills that was built by Louis B. Mayer and lives in a mansion on Sunset Boulevard that belonged to Cary Grant.

So do they call him Sterling, the entrepreneur?

Nope.

Sterling is also known for lavish parties and charitable works.

So do they call him Sterling, the fabulously wealthy bon vivant and humanitarian?

Uh-uh.

But he runs one lousy basketball franchise into the ground and. . . .

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Sterling has a vision for his Clippers. No, really.

In it, the Clippers are no laughingstock but a competitive team in a brand-, spanking-new arena, presumably in Los Angeles, which Donald loves with the passion of a poor boy from East L.A. who made it big on the West Side.

Of course, that might take a while to achieve, given the current circumstances. The question is always: How can a man shrewd enough to make a fortune all by himself fail so consistently at this enterprise?

The best answer comes from a Clipper official who notes that sports fans, who think short-term, can never understand Sterling, who thinks decades out.

“I always think long-term about anything,” Sterling says. “That’s why I have never sold anything that I’ve ever purchased, and I never purchase anything that I don’t think I’m going to keep for a lifetime. I will never sell the team because I never sell anything. I view everything from a long-term perspective.”

In the meantime, the struggle continues, even in these relatively fat days, when the Clippers have made the playoffs three times in six seasons.

They’re still in the old, unrenovated Sports Arena while annually entertaining and rejecting proposals to move to the Pond of Anaheim and, with painstaking and maddening deliberation, sorting through other offers, of which they say they have many.

Their facility is modest, and their attendance is embarrassing in an NBA that plays to more than 90% of capacity. Appearing in the Sports Arena recently, after years of trying to nudge Sterling to Anaheim or anywhere, NBA Commissioner David Stern vowed not to meddle in arena politics but couldn’t resist a zinger, saying he was leaving it up to Sterling “and whoever he communicates or communes with.”

With a scrappy, playoff-bound team this season, the Clippers averaged 8,821 in the Sports Arena--55% of capacity--putting them last, far behind the next-worst draw, the Philadelphia 76ers, at 73%.

Sterling denies it, but some Clipper officials agree that small crowds undermine morale. The team has a long-standing problem retaining players, who generally flee or force trades at the first opportunity, as did Danny Manning, Charles Smith, Ken Norman, Dominique Wilkins and Brian Williams. The only big-ticket free agent who ever re-upped, Ron Harper, signed a one-year, $4-million deal, later compared playing for the Clippers to being “in jail” and left.

Clipper officials implore Sterling to take the Anaheim option. (They averaged 15,314 for six dates at the Pond this season.) Last spring, Sterling tiptoed right up to the edge, but, just when everyone thought the deal was done, tiptoed back.

Why? He was just being Sterling.

Although outgoing, courtly, warm and eager to be liked, Sterling doesn’t like doing interviews. He sits for this one, only after a month of negotiation, told that other local owners are going along. Besides, Clipper fortunes are at a relative peak, so why act as if he has something--himself--to hide?

Not that he’ll give a lot away.

If asked about someone’s performance, Sterling will say what a wonderful person that someone is. Either he is missing the point, or everyone else is missing his.

Actually, it has been suggested that Sterling’s agenda is as much social as professional, that he loves the star status that owning even a bad team confers and relishes the thrill of being able to entertain other stars.

“Winning is the most important thing,” he gushed in a 1990 interview. “But there is a lot of little boy in me.

“When I meet the governor of New York and he says, ‘Do you think you have a good starting five?’ that makes me feel good.

“The night before, my guests were the chancellor of Pepperdine, Charles Runnels, and George Page, the owner of the museum. That’s exciting! Bruce McNall [then the Kings’ owner] sits down with me. He says he has more fun at the Sports Arena than he does at the Forum, and I understand what he’s talking about. It’s more fun watching a team when you’re not suffering. I like Bruce. I like [Jerry] Buss. I love Al Davis!”

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Six years later, things are looking up--or are they?

Question: “You’re sitting in the Sports Arena, you’ve got 5-6-7,000 people rattling around in there, how’s that make you feel?”

Answer: “First of all, I’d rather win and have an empty arena than have a full arena and lose.”

Q: “You don’t have to worry about it. If you win, you’ll have a full arena. If you lose, you’ll have an empty arena.”

A: “But I think that we have very loyal, very vocal fans in the Los Angeles Sports Arena. And we have very loyal, supportive fans in Orange County. And we have some very, very good fans in San Diego. Our objective is to broaden our base. We feel that Southern California, Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, all love NBA basketball, and we would like to reach a level of competitiveness and excitement that embraces all of those fans. And when we play games in Orange County, a lot of the San Diego fans come up. . . . When we play in Los Angeles, we bring fans down from Ventura and from the West Valley and from Los Angeles.”

Q: “There just aren’t enough of them.”

A: “Attendance isn’t one of our criteria. Like money isn’t a factor at all in our decision where we’re going to play. . . .

“There are sources of income that are available to other teams that are available to us because we’re in this very desirable market. I think the team does well, financially.”

It’s true, financially, the Clippers are successful.

Sterling essentially got the team free, agreeing to pick up $13 million the San Diego Clippers owed in deferred salaries. In 1990, he estimated the franchise’s worth at $70 million. A Clipper official says he recently saw a proposal from a Nashville group offering $250 million.

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Other than financially, however, it’s still a struggle.

Q: “You haven’t been particularly successful. What do you attribute that to?”

A: “I think that’s a very good question. As the owner, the buck has to stop with me. . . .

“There are 29 [NBA] owners in America and they’re all very successful, they’re all very intelligent, they all want to win and they’re all prepared to do whatever’s necessary to win. They all want to hire the best people in the country to work for them, and they all want to draft the best players and they all want to make the best trades. . . .

“It’s been a very difficult learning experience because we all think we buy a team and we hire the best people in America to work for us and we select the best players, it’s easy! Well, it seems easy, it sounds easy, but it’s not easy. Otherwise, everybody would be winning.”

Q: “Do you, in fact, think you have the best people in America?”

A: “I think we have an excellent coach [Bill Fitch]. I think he’s a wonderful human being. I think he’s a motivator. And I think that if you would ask anybody in America if he is getting everything that these players have to offer out of them, I think they would say, if they knew basketball, that he is.

“We don’t have the most talent in America, but they play very hard and they care for the coach. . . . I watch him and I talk to him, and I talk to the players from time to time and I think he is one of the elite coaches in America. He was voted one of the 10 top coaches in the NBA.”

Q: “What do you think of your general manager?”

Sterling pauses, dramatically. On the tape of the interview, the silence lasts 19 seconds.

A: “Elgin Baylor is a loyal, hard-working, conscientious man who gives you 100% of what he has. He can only do that which he believes in. Now, he’s made some very good trades and he’s made some very good drafts. Perhaps he’s made some mistakes and other teams have made mistakes as well, but all you can ask a man to do is the best that he can do, and I respect him. I like him.

“There is nothing that anyone could ask him to do in connection with the team that he wouldn’t do. He lives and dies with every victory and every defeat. He knows the game. That should be the most important issue. He does know the game.

“If he had a chance to look back at some of the trades, moves and drafts, would he do it differently? I’m sure he would. . . . But measuring all things, I think he is an enormous asset, and I would want Elgin Baylor to be with our organization for as long as I’m involved with the organization.”

Q: “With all due respect, I have to tell you that what you’ve just said sounds like a rather lukewarm endorsement.”

A: “I don’t feel that I should be interviewed because I don’t know how I can speak as an authority on other people when I haven’t won, myself. So if there’s a lukewarm endorsement, the lukewarm endorsement should first be toward the owner.

“But if you’re going to measure people by whether they’ve won or lost, that’s one measurement. If you want to measure them by the hard work, the loyalty, the caring, the conscientiousness, the commitment, that’s another measure.

“I said that as long as I’m associated with the team, I would like Elgin Baylor associated with the team. I don’t think that’s a lukewarm endorsement. Has he won a world championship? Will he? I hope so.”

Sterling has done this before, conceding some ground to Baylor’s critics--or dangling Baylor in front of them--but always forgiving him.

In fact, Baylor has been as hamstrung as any other Clipper official. Insiders say Baylor’s chief fault is not being forceful enough with Sterling.

For his part, Sterling says he wants a strong man but refuses to invest full power in any one man. Often depicted as a meddler, Sterling is actually more of a delayer.

“His way is psychological warfare,” says a former Clipper official. “He puts doubt in your mind. Maybe it’s his training as a lawyer. He’s an expert at avoiding taking a position.”

This was borne out in the aborted Manning-Glen Rice deal of 1993. Manning was nearing free agency, having shown up bright and early in the Clipper offices to sign a one-year qualifying offer the previous July 1, the first day he was eligible.

Baylor made a deal with Miami: Manning for Rice and Willie Burton. Sterling, who happened to visit the Irvine training camp that day, was apprised and approached Manning, pleading with him to stay.

Manning appeared to soften, to Sterling, anyway.

Clipper officials huddled on the spot and called off the deal.

Four months later, when even Sterling was finally convinced of Manning’s intentions, Manning was traded to the Atlanta Hawks . . . for another free-agent-to-be, Wilkins.

Wilkins played well, but the Clippers finished a forlorn season, then offered him half of what he was demanding to stay.

Wilkins left. Manning was gone. Rice turned into a major star--in Charlotte.

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Then there’s the arena issue.

Q: “My impression, based on talking to people in your organization, is you were close to actually signing an agreement and moving down there [Anaheim] last year. As a matter of fact, everybody thought it was a done deal.”

A: “Well, I think we were in discussions. We were in negotiations. Everybody acted in good faith. And perhaps, if certain terms and conditions had been performed . . . a deal perhaps could have been made. . . .

“May we some day resume those discussions? Yes, that’s very possible. Is it a desirable site to play? Yes, it’s one of the most desirable sites in America. Would any NBA team be happy and excited and thrilled to be playing in Orange County? Yes. They’re all wonderful markets and they’re all wonderful fans. . . .

“But we have other proposals that are perhaps better for the franchise from other entities and we’re examining those. We don’t feel any pressure. We don’t feel like we’re in any hurry. . . .

“You know, this franchise started in San Diego. [Actually, it began life in Buffalo, as an expansion team known as the Buffalo Braves.] It moved to Los Angeles [after first moving to San Diego]. It had a lot of growing pains. We made a lot of mistakes. We continue to make mistakes, but we’re learning every day and we’re trying every day and we’re getting better.

“There’s an explosion in the media today. There’s a tremendous demand like never before for product, for programming. We do 100 shows a year--82 games and exhibitions and playoffs--and it’s 100 three-hour shows. Do you realize how valuable that product is? Imagine if it was a great product!”

So far, one can only imagine.