Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard JJ Redick (4) looks on against the Denver Nuggets during the third quarter at Staples Center. The Los Angeles Clippers won 119-102. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports
Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers guard JJ Redick (4) looks on against the Denver Nuggets during the third quarter at Staples Center. The Los Angeles Clippers won 119-102. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is currently embroiled in a scandal, just as his predecessor, Donald Sterling, was at the end of his time at the helm. While Ballmer has landed in trouble for cap circumvention, Sterling was forced to sell the Clippers after a recorded conversation in which he made racist remarks was leaked by TMZ in 2014.
While Sterling was telling his mistress, V. Stiviano, that he was bothered by her associating with Black people and didn’t want them at his games, there is also an infamous story involving him and a White player. It was widely reported that he tried to kill a sign-and-trade agreement to bring JJ Redick to Los Angeles in 2013.
Sterling is said to have not been keen on giving a White player like Redick a lot of money, but his former Clippers teammate Glen “Big Baby” Davis thinks that wasn’t the case. Davis recently appeared on the TFU Podcast, where he was asked if race played a part.
“No, JJ is the token White man,” Davis said. “Everybody’s giving JJ a contract. I just think he didn’t play at the level that he should have played, and he didn’t get what he was supposed to get.”
Redick had averaged 14.1 points, 2.2 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.1 blocks per game for the Orlando Magic and the Milwaukee Bucks in 2012-13. It was the best season of his career at that point, so to say he didn’t play at the level he should have seems a bit absurd.
Redick’s play had convinced Doc Rivers that he was worth a four-year, $27 million contract. Rivers had become the Clippers’ head coach and vice president of basketball operations in 2013 and wanted the sharpshooter on his team. They had an agreement, but Sterling didn’t want to sign off on it. The ever-reliable Adrian Wojnarowski reported for Yahoo Sports in 2014 that there was a notion that race played a part.
“When Sterling became reluctant to honor Rivers’ sign-and-trade agreement for J.J. Redick, there was a belief race played a factor,” Wojnarowski wrote. “As one league source said, ‘He thought it was too much to pay for a white player.'”
NBA insider Sam Amick heard the same at the time and brought up the deal that might have led to Sterling having that mindset.
“Sterling, the man whose racist comments sparked this whole furor, was believed to have had concerns about paying a white player that kind of money,” Amick wrote, via NBC Sports. “He had once given white center Chris Kaman a five-year, $52 million deal, and how that contract panned out (or didn’t, as Kaman played 195 games in the next four years of that deal and was traded to New Orleans with a year and a half left) appeared to be coloring Sterling’s judgment on this deal.”
Just because Chris Kaman didn’t live up to expectations doesn’t mean every White player was going to. Redick would go on to have some of the best years of his career with the Clippers. Rivers knew what he was doing by going after him.
Now Redick also spoke at the time about what he had heard regarding Sterling trying to stop his signing with the Clippers.
“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 said. “I didn’t know (the deal almost fell apart) until after the fact. I just got a weird phone call from Doc 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?’”
As you’d expect, Redick, who is now head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, was confused by Rivers’ remarks. His agent only told him 48 hours later what had happened.
Redick officially became a Clipper in July 2013, and then in February 2024, Davis signed with the team. The big man would spend a season and a half with the franchise, during which he averaged 4.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.3 blocks per game.
Davis didn’t quite live up to expectations, and the 2014-15 season with the Clippers would prove to be his last in the NBA. Instead of quietly fading away, though, he made headlines for all the wrong reasons in 2024 when he was sentenced to 40 months in prison for his involvement in an alleged scheme to defraud the league’s health care benefits plan.
Davis was released in March 2026 and has now accused other ex-players of stealing money as well. The 40-year-old sure doesn’t seem to care about burning bridges.