Former Clippers Star's Honest Statement on Controversial Moment With Team

This was one of the darker moments in Clipper history.

Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Baron Davis had one of the roughest tenures any player could have with the LA Clippers. He joined the team at the peak of his prime, expecting to play with an All-Star Elton Brand, but instead played on embarrassing 20-win teams. Not only that, but he experienced something much worse.

When Baron Davis joined the LA Clippers, he was routinely harassed and berated by racist owner Donald Sterling in the middle of games. It's a period of time that Davis doesn't like speaking about, but finally opened up about during the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast with Carmelo Anthony.

“For me. I would say, I ain't never talked about this one. So the whole Donald Sterling sh*t with the Clippers, right? My first day of the Clippers, the media dude come up to me and say, ‘Hey, no matter what he say to you, bro, don't pay attention to him. He don't mean what he say.’ I don't know what the f**k that means. You know what I mean? And so that just kind of spiraled to the season where it was just all his beef. So I go to Africa and I was like, all right, this man racist, but what do I know about racism? So I go to Africa, I do some NGO work, just moving around when I get to Africa, man, I call Pooh [Richardson] and I said, Pooh man, I ain't trying to be no Magic Johnson."

- Baron Davis

Davis despised every moment of being on the Clippers, but he wanted to be there for his teammates. He didn't want to leave the peers who looked up to him behind, and that's when he decided he'd endure it. The most unfortunate part about Baron's decision was the amount of racism he faced.

"And at that moment it was just like, all right man, I'm just about to act in a worker service for my homeboys and I'm going to be like their stepping stone," Davis said. "So however you need to be around me in the prime of my career, I'm just going to make sure you got the same relationships and the same people know you. So you can see the longevity in this. And so that was kind of the moment. And then I realized what racism is."

Those days in 2009 feels like a lifetime ago to what the Clippers have now become. In those days, the LA team was considered the worst franchise in all of sports. Now, they've had one of the greatest regular season records in the last decade, and are about to open a $2 billion arena with the richest owner in basketball.

It's unfortunate to see what Baron Davis experienced with the Clippers from 2008-2011, but he now has a healthy relationship with the franchise since Steve Ballmer's arrival. Baron can routinely be seen on broadcasts and appears frequently at games. Nothing will ever make up for what happened to Baron Davis during his tenure, but the biggest silver-lining is that those days are long gone.

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