'Clipped' recreates an embarrassing NBA scandal

Laurence Fishburne as Doc Rivers in Clipped.

Kelsey McNeal / FX

The new FX limited series Clipped tells the story of Donald Sterling, the then-owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, who was outed as a racist. Sterling's girlfriend – who was Black and Mexican – secretly recorded their conversations. When those tapes leaked, he was embroiled in a scandal that upended the NBA – an industry that profits off the star power of its majority Black players. The series stars Ed O'Neill and Laurence Fishburne as the owner and the head coach who clashed as it all went down.

Transcript

AISHA HARRIS, HOST:

Once upon a time, a powerful white businessman was outed as a straight-up racist. Donald Sterling, the then-owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, was embroiled in a scandal that upended the NBA, a huge industry that profits off the star power and skills of its majority Black players. Sterling's girlfriend, who was Black and Mexican, secretly recorded their conversations. Of course, those tapes leaked, and a new FX limited series dramatizes the events. It stars Ed O'Neill and Laurence Fishburne as the owner and the head coach who clashed as it all went down. I'm Aisha Harris and today we're talking about "Clipped" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.

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HARRIS: Joining me today is one of the hosts of NPR's Code Switch podcast, Gene Demby. Hey, Gene.

GENE DEMBY, BYLINE: What's good, Aisha? I'm so excited to talk about this with you.

HARRIS: I mean, I already told you this, but you were one of the first people I thought of.

DEMBY: I don't know to be flattered or be (laughter)...

HARRIS: This is good. This is good, especially because my NBA knowledge is very, very limited, so it is very welcome to have you here. So the main events of "Clipped" take place during the 2013-2014 NBA season. Laurence Fishburne plays Doc Rivers, the new head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers. Ed O'Neill plays Donald Sterling, a billionaire who's been the team's owner for more than 30 years. Now, Donald carries on a very public extramarital affair with a much younger woman named V. Stiviano, buying her gifts, funding a lavish lifestyle. V is played by Cleopatra Coleman. V. records many of their private conversations, and eventually some of that audio is leaked to the press. It reveals Donald once chastised V. for posting a photo of herself with Magic Johnson on Instagram and, in his exact words, associating with Black people.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CLIPPED")

CLEOPATRA COLEMAN: (As V. Stiviano) I'm Black and Mexican, whether you like it or not, and you want me to have hate towards Black people.

ED O'NEILL: (As Donald Sterling) I don't want you to have hate. That's what people - they turn things around. I want you to love them privately.

HARRIS: The leak causes turmoil within the league, and Doc and his players agonize over how to respond - boycott, make a statement on the court, play on? This is very, very complicated.

DEMBY: (Laughter).

HARRIS: It's streaming on FX on Hulu now. So, you know, Gene, you, I think, as I already said, you're much more aware of the NBA and understand what was going on. And like a lot of people, you were following this case in real time because it was only 10 years ago. You even wrote about it for NPR at the time. So I'm curious as to, like, what your initial impressions of "Clipped" are, especially as you remember it happening back in the day.

DEMBY: My first impression of this was it seemed to be setting this series up to be, like, a story about, you know, a very dysfunctional workplace. It really picks up when the giant sort of grenade goes off, which is when Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, basically bans Donald Sterling...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...For life from the NBA. And I remember being in the news room when that happened and being like, damn. Like, I mean, it was sort of an unprecedented response. Like, everyone - like, there was no sense that that was actually on the table for Donald Sterling.

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: There was this moment - it feels quaint now because of so many other giant moments around race and social justice in the NBA and NFL since then, but there was this moment when it felt like this was going to be this watershed moment and maybe would change a bunch of the ways the NBA operated and the way it vetted its owners.

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: Since then, a few other NBA owners have been removed from their posts, their very...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Gilded posts as billionaire owners of these, like, very valuable franchises. But the miniseries is fascinating because some people come across really, really well.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: Doc Rivers, notably...

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: ...Who was the head coach of the Clippers in this, is one of the sort of more polarizing figures on the NBA, but he come across as sort of like this gruff, avuncular coach who really cares about his players and real-life players still complain about Doc Rivers 10 years hence. But it was really fascinating to see - what the series does really well is capture the very weird character of Donald Sterling, which is that he is both like buffoonish - right?

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: And also maligned in this way that is really consequential, right? Like, he...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Is not necessarily a mustache-twirling villain, but he's absolutely a villain.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: And his wife, Shelly Sterling, is not exactly innocent, but she's also, like, much more sympathetic than you would think at first glance, you know?

HARRIS: Yeah, I mean, the Shelly Sterling character is played by Jacki Weaver here. And it feels like out of all of the characters in the series, she is the most complicated or most, like - you kind of sympathize with her, but at the same time, she is absolutely just in cahoots with him. Especially because she is a co-owner of the team. So it's them together as a married couple. And one of the things that I think this series does a pretty decent job of is showing how the tapes were obviously the thing that got everyone paying attention, but there was a lot more going on before this, especially - he was also a real estate tycoon, and there had been lawsuits filed before all of this went down against him and Shelly Sterling for how they - like, a lot of housing discrimination. A lot of Trump elements going on here. That's...

DEMBY: Right.

HARRIS: That's the vibe, and I think that that's one thing that I came away from this series - like, I remember I was paying attention to it in real time, and I had forgotten about the other details of the real estate and how this is kind of, like, the straw that broke the camel's back, but, like, this was not the first thing. And I think that was something that it does a really good job of portraying.

DEMBY: But it was arguably not even the most consequential thing, right? Like, I mean...

HARRIS: Yeah, so, I mean, it's interesting, especially to see someone like Ed O'Neill, who I don't feel like it's too much of a stretch here because it's not like he's - like, when I think about going back to "Married With Children," he was kind of (laughter)...

DEMBY: (Laughter).

HARRIS: ...He was kind of a buffoon there too. It's just here, it's a much more overtly sinister tone than it was, you know, in that sitcom, and of course, he did "Modern Family" in between that. But I don't know - do you think that it paints a complicated or, like, a layered look at Donald Sterling? Because I think - when I think about what that actual real-life incidents brought up, was this idea of, like, plantation politics and this idea of, like, this man who thinks that he owns all of his players in a way - that is complicated in a sport that is majority Black. Did that come across to you? Did it feel as though we were touching on something complicated in a way that, also played out in real life?

DEMBY: Yeah, I mean, one of the really strange things about when that was playing out in real life and watching this in the context of the miniseries is that it's really hard to get people on board to the idea that these are millionaires, right? And some of them are, like, ridiculously famous on top of it.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: But they're still, like, a labor class, and they still are reporting to this management structure that they can still feel exploited, right? Like, they're doing physical labor that is enriching this person.

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: One of the things I think this miniseries does a good job on is, like, getting a sort of sense of the continuum of ways that people on the team might have felt they should have responded - right? - because obviously, in real time, when it happens, we see the team sort of standing in solidarity. They decide not to wear the logo of the team during warm-ups as somebody quips, well, what is this going to be?

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DEMBY: When we actually play the game, we got the logos on. Like, how - like, what is this - how is this going to work?

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: There was a sense that, like, different players had - you know, had very different orientations to how they should respond, wanted different responses. But I think this is, like, a - this is, like, one of the sort of most complicated and thorny underlying dynamics of the NBA, which is that it is built around the brands and personalities of mostly young Black men - right? - for a long time. The league's TV audience is really diverse now. But for a long time, negotiating, like, what it meant to be consumed by a mostly white audience was a giant concern of the league, right?

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: You know, Allen Iverson famously had his tattoos airbrushed off in one of the league's official magazines. You know, that was only a decade-plus earlier, you know, to this incident. And so there's the negotiations between how to present these young, very rich Black men to a mostly white audience. That has been one of the sort of, like, thorny, complicated dynamics in the NBA for a long time. And, of course, these players, as we see - and this is - they complained about this in real life when it was happening. It's like, Donald Sterling treated them almost like things, like playthings. He would come to the locker room...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...And sort of show them off to other VIPs that he wanted to impress, like, as these men were in various stages of, like, undress. I think those things are really effective in weird ways because you get the sense of just how out of bounds these things are...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...That it's like, well, I mean, there are reporters in the locker rooms when they're half naked all the time. You know what I mean? Like, it's the lines between, like...

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: ...Is this okay? - all get really blurry really quickly.

HARRIS: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause, like, in one of the earlier scenes, they're at, like, a big party. And Donald Sterling, that character, is just kind of, like, being very touchy-feely and talking about his players as if they're not really - like, not standing right next to him. And then, of course, you know, the Doc Rivers character goes up to Blake Griffin, who's played by Austin Scott here. He's like - you know, he asks him, what - how do you feel about this?

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CLIPPED")

LAURENCE FISHBURNE: (As Doc Rivers) Are you all right with Donald showing you off in front of folks like this?

AUSTIN SCOTT: (As Blake Griffin) Yeah. I don't know - when he does it, I just kind of pretend like my hand is somebody else's hand and drift away a little bit.

HARRIS: So you have there, like, this weird dynamic that we're so used to seeing with women, especially, who have to deal with sort of that weird harassment and whatever. And oftentimes it's not in, like, sports. It's usually in Hollywood or in, like, the music industry, maybe. So it's really interesting to see that dynamic play out here and dramatized. And I think that's one thing that I took away from this - was like, Oh, this is a different side of, like, talking about how exploitative all of the entertainment industry can be regardless of where you are. And obviously, there are levels to it. And I think, you know, your average NBA player probably has it better than, like, your average musician, artist because...

DEMBY: Guaranteed contracts and all the stuff like that. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

HARRIS: Exactly. And endorsement deals - like, all those things. It's not all roses. I do want to kind of turn to the V. Stiviano character, though (laughter).

DEMBY: I was - I'm so curious. I have so many questions for you about what you made of - she is such a fundamentally hard person to capture because...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Remember, when these interviews were happening in real life when she was...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...When she did the Barbara Walters sit-down and all the stuff like that was like, what?

HARRIS: And she was wearing the visor, like the very...

DEMBY: And roller skates.

HARRIS: Yeah. The problem that this and any sort of dramatization of this type of person is is that, A, like, obviously, there's a real person behind this. This is not just, like, a fake, fictional gold-digger character. This is someone who really existed, and this is a real story. And I want to give that sort of grace, and I think this show attempts to do that. And I don't know how much this is the show's fault versus just, like, the nature of this beast, which is that she was someone who, by based on what we know, was, you know, this woman who was mostly focused on material things, was willing to do almost anything to get it. And she's taping him. And she's with this guy, and she's, you know, defending her Blackness and saying, I am Black, and I'm Mexican. But it's like, but you're still going out with him.

And there have been plenty of these series now that kind of try and look back and recontextualize and provide - to not shade certain characters who have been - especially in the press, been maligned or been, you know, hounded. But I'm not sure if this show is trying to do that or if it is doing that. And maybe to me, that's a sort of flaw of the show. So I guess my question for you, Gene is like, how did V. come off to you in the show? - because to me, I could not tell if the series was - well, I think it was trying to humanize her, but I'm not sure if it succeeded at that. But I also don't know if that's the show's fault or just, like, again, we don't know that much about her other than what she did.

DEMBY: I'd be really excited to see the "You're Wrong About" - to listen to the "You're Wrong About" episode about V. Stiviano...

HARRIS: (Laughter).

DEMBY: ...In, like, 2026. Oh, we got her all wrong. The show seemed to be trying to have it a little bit both ways, right? Like, wanted to sort of give her dimension - right? - that she was not just sort of - you know, it's very easy to caricature this kind of fame-hungry, young woman hanging out with this octogenarian dude billionaire.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: And so the show tries to - you know, she was trying to adopt these two children, and they were in foster care, and it set her up as someone who had, like, these motivations that were not completely, like, cynical and, like, driven by fame.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: At the same time, that very famous, much-memed (ph) interview she does with Barbara Walters is, like, basically recreated, like, line for line...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Because it's so funny and weird and bizarre. Like, and the point of that the reason it got memed because it was like her response is famously like, I am Donald Sterling's right hand arm.

HARRIS: (Laughter).

DEMBY: She says, I'm his silly rabbit. And Barbara Walters is like, he calls you that? And she's like, no.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

V STIVIANO: His silly rabbit.

BARBARA WALTERS: His what?

STIVIANO: His silly rabbit.

WALTERS: His silly rabbit?

STIVIANO: Yes.

WALTERS: Is that what he calls you?

STIVIANO: No.

DEMBY: It's like, so what are you talking about, sis? What are you talking about? And the point...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: That interview is still so funny to watch, but also in the context of this mini series, the point of it is to laugh at her - right? - like, is to laugh at how weird - this is a weird, weird conversation. It almost feels like if you're trying to humanize her, you can't use that interview, at least in the way they use it here.

HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. That comes up in a later episode. And it's just hard to reconcile, especially when - and I think this show also does something that I think a lot of recent sort of ripped from the headlines stories does, which includes, like, a lot of social media stock footage and to sort of symbolize like, oh, we're in the social media age and how different things are and how everyone's seeking fame or fortune or some sort of thing.

And she even has - this character, V, has within the context of the series a best friend played by Yvonna Pearson. And her name is Deja. We don't really get too many details. It seems like she might be a composite of different people. But she is, you know, a darker-skinned Black woman. They have, like, this sort of interesting relationship where Deja has been the one who sort of brought her into this world of, like, being a sugar baby and has taught her the ropes. And apparently she was a VJ at some point.

DEMBY: On MTV. Yeah.

HARRIS: But then, like, once things start to go south for V, then Deja is also like, well, you know, you were more than happy to take money from this obvious racist. And so - like, and so it was interesting to me to see them try to sort of, like, put in this weird, sort of imperfect angel on her shoulder - devil and angel, I guess. I mean, this brings me to my bigger question about the series itself, which is, like - did you watch or listen to the "30 For 30" podcast?

DEMBY: I did. I did.

HARRIS: Yeah. So that's what the series is adapted from. I guess for me, my bigger question is sort of, like, does this series actually add anything new or more complicated to the story? - because when I think about sort of all the sort of recent dramatizations of recent-ish history, whether it's something like "Pam And Tommy" or, you know, anything that's looking back 20, 30 years, they're usually trying to say something about, like, we got this wrong the last time. Even, like, O.J. - "People V. O.J." - it's like, we got this wrong, or, like, the story was more complicated than you remember. And I think when we're going back to only 2014 - and I don't want to say - like, journalism obviously was in a different place. And also, I don't want to, like, pat the media on the back too much. But I feel like in 2014, we had a lot more really smart, especially Black sports commentators and writers, whether, as I said, you wrote about it at the time. You had Jemele Hill. You had people commenting on it in real time. And I wonder, what is this show bringing that, like, those people back then weren't already bringing to this story?

DEMBY: That's a great question. When I was watching it, like, I felt it was doing that thing where it scratches that sort of, like, oh, I remember this thing.

HARRIS: Yes.

DEMBY: I kept thinking like, oh, man. The "30 For 30" did this with, like, more nuance, right? Like, you know, they can sort of zoom out 'cause it's, you know, a documentary. And so you don't have to sort of invent these scenes to sort of illustrate the conflict, right?

HARRIS: Right.

DEMBY: Like, some of the conversations that happen in this series seem like they're, like, a little too on the nose - right? like, a little too, like, OK, all right. Nobody said this. There's one - there's a scene. I remember it, like, 'cause I looked down at my hands. I'm like, y'all got to calm down. There's - Doc Rivers, who's played by Laurence Fishburne, is sitting in a sauna with LeVar Burton.

HARRIS: With LeVar Burton, who's playing himself.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CLIPPED")

FISHBURNE: (As Doc Rivers) Maybe you heard the Clippers are cursed. Now, I don't believe that kind of stuff, but today I felt like Elgin was warning me that I had the curse on me, too. I just didn't know it yet.

LEVAR BURTON: (As himself) When people tell you that you're cursed, they just want you to fail. Ask me; I think you're doing all right.

HARRIS: I was very confused by LeVar Burton being there. Look. I'm always happy to see him, but also, I was like, huh (ph)?

DEMBY: Yeah. LeVar Burton - a hundred percent approval rating. But also, why is this dude here? Like, I was like, wait. Were him and Doc Rivers really - I was - it was just such a funny...

HARRIS: Also makes both references to "Roots" and "Star Trek"...

DEMBY: "Star Trek."

HARRIS: ...At separate points. I'm like, OK. All right (laughter).

DEMBY: Those moments are just very weird - right? - like, when you're trying to recreate these sort of - like, you're trying to recreate these tensions that are happening, obviously...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...In the case of the Sterlings, over decades. Honestly, probably, like, you know, like, the way that people are experiencing Donald Sterling was probably just not verbalized all the time. And the way that...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Like, a series like this is sort of leaning on is - like, people are just constantly talking about how crappy their boss is - you know what I mean...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...And how racist he is.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: And so a lot of these conversations feel just, like, really, like, kind of TV movie-ish (ph), you know?

HARRIS: Yeah. I think that's sort of the point we've reached now where it's like - oftentimes I think these series and these shows are, like, saying the, quote-unquote, "right" things or the things that, like, I would agree with or, like, have the take that I would agree with. But then, at the same time, I'm like, what's new here? Like, what is - what are we doing here? I'm not sure for me, as someone who's only, like, a very, very casual NBA fan and who, like, mostly knows about the gossip through my partner, who follows it very closely. And, like, I think for me, I didn't really get anything out of this. But I'm curious, Gene, if, like, for your friends who are, like you - remember this happening and/or are, like, big NBA heads, like, would this be worth checking out?

DEMBY: I mean, if it was a choice between this and the "30 For 30" series by Ramona Shelburne, I would really recommend the Ramona Shelburne series.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: One of the things that's really consistent through both of them is that Shelly Sterling comes across as a sort of, like, strange - like, you don't know what to make of her, right?

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: Like, how much did she know? The way that series ends is that she is very much still responsible for Donald Sterling. This is not a giant spoiler. Either Donald Sterling has Alzheimer's - he has dementia related to Alzheimer's in real life. And so she's still - like, when that series ends, she's still taking care of him...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Even though she had to like, publicly break with him. And so some of that stuff happens. A lot of that stuff happens in the context of the series, but, like, it's too soapy, you know? Like, it's like a little bit too - there's a bunch of reasons why this story mattered because it literally did change the sporting landscape. Why it mattered - I don't know that that comes across in this series so much. This series is very much focused on the personalities and sort of the sort of, like, interpersonal conflicts. But that misses the repercussions of all this, right? Like, we're still...

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: ...Living downstream from what happened to that. And, you know, there's a whole bunch of other conversations you can have about, you know, the sort of mega-rich and sports ownership and their relationship to the labor class there. And, like, there's a whole bunch of conversations that this series that can't, like, sort of - is not interested in.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: Those conversations are more adroitly handled in other spaces.

HARRIS: Yeah.

DEMBY: But this was - I enjoyed. It was a fun, breezy watch.

HARRIS: Yeah, yeah. I would agree. It was really easy to go down, maybe easier than I think it should have been, if that makes sense, but not a terrible way to spend, you know, six-ish hours over the course of, you know, six episodes. So, well, we want to know what you think about "Clipped" as you're watching it. Find us at facebook.com/pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Gene Demby, thanks so much for being here.

DEMBY: Appreciate you, Aisha. Thank you for having me.

HARRIS: Same to you. This episode was produced by Hafsa Fathima and edited by Mike Katzif, and our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our the music. Thank you so much for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. I'm Aisha Harris, and we'll see you all tomorrow.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.