Warriors had dramatic boycott set for Game 5 against Clippers

The Warriors said they had a boycott planned for after the opening jump ball of Game 5. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)

The Golden State Warriors had a boycott set in place for their Game 5 first-round contest against the Los Angeles Clippers just in case NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had been soft in disciplining Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Silver banned Sterling for life, fined him $2.5 million and urged the other NBA owners to vote to strip Sterling of the franchise.

According to Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group, the Warriors decided during a players meeting that they were going to go through the pre-game warmups, take part in the singing of the national anthem and the starting lineup introduction.

Once the jump ball occurred, though, the entire team would have left the court.

“It would have been our only chance to make a statement in front of the biggest audience that we weren’t going to accept anything but the maximum punishment,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “We would deal with the consequences later but we were not going to play.”

According to the report, Curry, along with David Lee, Jermaine O’Neal and Draymond Green were behind the boycott idea.

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