Ballmer, who retired as Microsoft’s CEO four months ago has a net worth of $20 billion. Another source, with intimate knowledge of the bids that Rochelle Sterling has thus far received for the basketball team, said offers have come in between $1 billion and $2 billion and that the Ballmer package is strong.

It is still early in the bidding process for the Clippers and it is quite possible that the price could go higher, especially if interested parties join forces to buy the team. Still, I must tip my hat to Bill Simmons, who predicted at the end of April that the basketball team would fetch $1.75 billion. Donald Sterling bought the Clippers in June, 1981 for $12.5 million. NBA owners are voting June 3 to force he and his wife Rochelle to sell the team due to racist comments made by him in private that were taped and subsequently made public.

The letter, sources tell SI.com, claims that Sterling has done nothing wrong and that "no punishment is warranted" for Sterling. Blecher also tells Buchanan that Sterling will not pay the $2.5 million fine, which is already past due. Blecher ends the letter by saying this controversy "will be adjudicated."

Blecher's letter makes clear what many have anticipated: Donald Sterling will not go down without a fight and that he is taking active steps toward litigation. A letter of this type is considered a precursor to the filing of a lawsuit. Blecher's letter offers no ambiguity about Sterling's intentions.

"We reject your demand for payment," the letter tells Buchanan, who on May 14 informed Sterling by letter that he must pay the $2.5 million fine.

“They thought he would die two years ago,” one source said of Sterling, who on Tuesday was banned for life from the NBA for his now-infamous recorded racist rant

“People have been predicting his imminent demise. I’m sure he has the best . . . drugs money can buy,” said the source, who works closely with pro sports teams. “He can do anything to keep himself alive.”

“He’s calling everyone, saying: ‘Tell me I’m not a racist,’ ” a source said, noting that the friends are refusing, for fear that Sterling was recording them.

The Warriors were going to go through pre-game warm-ups and take part in the national anthem and starting line-up introductions. They were going to take the floor for the jump ball, dapping up the Clippers players as is customary before games.  

Then once the ball was in the air, they were just going to walk off. All 15 of them.

“It would have been our only chance to make a statement in front of the biggest audience that we weren’t going to accept anything but the maximum punishment,” Curry said. “We would deal with the consequences later but we were not going to play.”

Mostly, he’s never loved paying white players. In that way, he has an absolute plantation prism with which he sees players: He always preferred long, strong, physical players. To him, that’s a basketball player: Big, black and strong 

When Sterling became reluctant to honor Rivers’ sign-and-trade agreement for J.J. Redick, there was a belief race played a factor. As one league source said, “He thought it was too much to pay for a white player.”

Yes, Sterling didn’t want to so easily part with Eric Bledsoe, despite Rivers telling him they could never afford to pay Bledsoe in restricted free agency next summer. That was part of it, yes, but those who knew Sterling – who had history with him – believed largely that his disdain for paying $7 million per year for a white player caused him pause.