The NBA has much to lose in the Sterling-Silver showdown

Donald Sterling is not finished. Not by an long shot. Through his lawyer, Maxwell Blecher, he says he ain' t payin' and he ain' t goin'. First, Blecher argues that he has done nothing wrong and second he was denied due process. The clause ( Article 13.d ) that the league is relying upon states that the owner may not engage in unethical behavior or take positions adverse to the NBA. Sterling maintains what he says in the privacy of his home is his business not the league's. The league argues further that it is a private organization and not obligated to provide Sterling "due process".
What seems to be lost in the hostile sports media is the fact that no one every got wealthy by being stupid. Sterling did not hire just any lawyer. Maxwell Blecher is an anti trust lawyer. The public statement about Article 13.d and due process are side issues. If the NBA wants to pursue its case they are putting it all on the line.
In 1922 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously, in an opinion written by Oliver Wendell Holmes, that baseball was exempt from anti trust laws. That decision has only been revisited once, in 1972 in the Curt Flood free agency case. The Court grumbled a bit about the exemption but let it stand. There is no exemption for the NBA or the NFL. They have been allowed to exist and skirt anti trust laws simply because no one has challenged the status quo. Here is where Clint Eastwood would stare NBA Commissioner Adam Silver in the eye and ask, "Do you feel lucky?"
Would the Supreme Court be willing to expand baseball's anti trust status to include the NBA? In the extreme case the Court could reason that circumstances have change dramatically since 1922 with salaries in the millions and revenues in the billions ergo there is no exemption for sports. They are big businesses not national pastimes. A hell of a mess that would make of some very lucrative careers not only among athletes but also the broadcast media especially ESPN. If as the National Labor Relations Board argues amateur college athletes are employees how can professional athletes be no more than mere practitioners of the national pastime and their employers benign and benevolent overseers?
We would think it strange and unjust, if say, auto companies were allowed to behave like professional sports teams. They could divvy up the country into exclusive territories where one manufacturer was the single seller of all cars. They could set a minimum price on all vehicles and even each particular option. Following the NBA model, GM, Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, and the rest could force out the CEO of Ford.
The heated rhetoric that steams from discussions of race and individual privacy will give way to the arcane, sedate, and boring language of anti trust law and for that we can all be grateful. Players who would boycott Clipper games might want to think twice. The present de facto exemption from anti trust law accounts for their extremely handsome benefit packages as well the high net worth of individual team organizations. Both owners and players have a lot to lose.