File of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling attends a game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center
File of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling attends a game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Staples Center Reuters

The NBA has already a dropped the hammer on Donald Sterling by imposing a lifetime ban on him along with a $2.5 million ban on the owner. However, booting him out of the league as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers could be a long, nasty legal battle than everyone thinks because the league lacks sufficient merit to cancel his ownership.

According to Fox Sports write Clay Travis, Sterling, who earned a massive amount of money by being a clever lawyer, might have a valid ground to retain his ownership of the LA Clippers, despite the forthcoming 29-0 unanimous vote of NBA board of governors to force a sale of his franchise.

Travis stated the NBA has no legal authority to cancel Sterling's interest in his franchise because he did not clearly violate any provision in the by-laws pertaining to cancellation of ownership.

"A close examination of the NBA's bylaws raises serious questions about whether the NBA has the legal authority to strip Donald Sterling's ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers and force a sale of the franchise."

"Indeed, when you examine all of the relevant bylaws relating to termination of a franchise interest, I don't believe the NBA has the legal authority to take away Sterling's team and force the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers franchise."

According to the rules, the NBA can only terminate its association with an owner and force a sale of the franchise through a three fourths (3/4) of the Board of Governors if he violates any of the 10 grounds stated in the NBA constitution.

From the 10 provisions, Sterling again has not clearly breached any of these, though owners can base their decision on paragraph A and D of the article.

"(a) Willfully violate any of the provisions of the Constitution and By-Laws, resolutions, or agreements of the Association."

"d) Fail or refuse to fulfill its contractual obligations to the Association, its Members, Players, or any other third party in such a way as to affect the Association or its Members adversely."

Then again, Travis stressed that Sterling did not 'willfully' violate anything any provisions of the Constitution and its by-laws.

Another thing is he did not breach contractual violation with the Association, its members and players or might have not affected any of the third party involved.

"The first half of this prong doesn't apply at all. The latter half is very tenuous, but I've bolded it anyway. This is probably the NBA's only legal ground under the bylaws to argue that Sterling's ownership interests can be terminated."

"Sterling hasn't violated any contractual obligations to the league, its members or the players -- that is, he's continued to pay these partners and is not in breach of their contracts -- but could you argue that Sterling failed to meet his contractual obligations to the Clippers' sponsors? (Sponsors here would be "any other third party.")," Travis added.

Sterling's racial slur is without a doubt abhorring. Bigot has certainly no place in the league played by multi-racial players. However, breaking down the constitution, Sterling, the lawyer, may have a fighting chance to keep the franchise. That would be a hard news for the NBA to digest.