Shelly Sterling fired back at the NBA — for a decision to take away her shares of the Los Angeles Clippers — by branding the league as sexist and accusing them of having their own sort of discriminatory issues.The wife of Donald Sterling — the banned owner of the team — alluded to the S-word during an interview with the Today show to describe how she is being forced to give up her 50-percent stake in the club by the league.The league issued a statement on Sunday saying her shares would be forfeited if team owners voted to force her disgraced husband — who was recorded making racial slurs two weeks ago — to sell.Asked what she thought of the NBA's decision, Sterling replied:"Would an owner's wife say the same thing and would the owner be asked to leave the NBA?" she asked back in the interview Tuesday morning. "Or would they say, 'Ah she's only the wife?'""Why am I the victim, when he's the perpetrator? If somebody kills somebody does the wife have to stand trial too?" she said to host Savannah Guthrie.Sterling said she was shocked when she watched her husband's latest interview, in which he sparked more controversy by saying Magic Johnson had done nothing to help the African-American community.He made a series of disparaging remarks about Johnson's HIV-positive status — mistakenly saying he had AIDS — dismissing his work in charity and business and saying he's not a proper role model.Hours after Shelly Sterling said she would fight to keep her ownership of the franchise even if her estranged husband can't, the league said that wouldn't be possible."Under the NBA constitution, if a controlling owner's interest is terminated by a three-quarter vote, all other team owners' interests are automatically terminated as well," an NBA spokesman said."It doesn't matter whether the owners are related as is the case here. These are the rules to which all NBA owners agreed to as a condition of owning their team."Shelly's attorney, Pierce O'Donnell, responded to the NBA's statement."We do not agree with the league's self-serving interpretation of its constitution, its application to Shelly Sterling or its validity under these unique circumstances," O'Donnell said. "We live in a nation of laws. California law and the United States Constitution trump any such interpretation."Sterling also told ABC News on Sunday that she "would love him to" consider transferring ownership to her if he is forced to sell.
