NBA going too far with Sterling issue?

I woke up this morning to more news about L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling and it got me thinking about this situation from different angles. Let me preface this post by first saying that I find racism to be abhorrent and a useless anachronism. It is harmful to our society and we should strive to be better than that. With that being said,my first new thought on this will likely prove very unpopular be cause it will seem like I am defending Mr.Sterling,which in a way, I am. He is a citizen of the US of A and as such, his comments,while unacceptable, are protected by the First Amendment. If NAMBLA publications can be seen as protected by the 1st Amendment by the Supreme Court, then certainly Mr. Sterling has the same protection. He was in his own home,being illegally recorded, and spoke his mind. What he said is not the central issue now. Like him, hate him or dont care,it does not matter. Due to his comments, we can see the slippery slope. If there is no clause in his ownership contract with the NBA regarding this sort of situation, then he should remain as an owner.I urge this in the strongest of terms. We cannot let ourselves go down the easy path, folks. Were the NBA to remove him from his position, it opens the door to a whole slew of issues. Think on this: A woman works hard to build a company in industry X and her clientele are mainly happily married women. She goes home and through a telephone recording,is revealed to hate men with a passion that is holy.She spends a few minutes on the worst, most vile, man hating diatribe any person has ever heard. This rant hits the news and the calls start coming to fire her, take her company away, etc. She is protected by the 1st Amendment as is Sterling. IF there is no clause in Sterling's contract, then the NBA is acting as thought and speech police. I urge full and complete disclosure to the public of Mr. Sterling's contract. If what he said doesnt fall under any prohibitions that he agreed to, the the NBA should stop its efforts and instead let the fans vote with their wallets.When the sponsors pull out and the fans dont show up, Mr. Racist will have to eat the cost of paying his players and keeping up the arena himself. If Magic, Jay Z, Oprah, Floyd or Oscar want to own an NBA team in LA, let them!!Force Mr. Strlings hand by standing up a new team in the same market. His current net worth is 1.9 billion dollars and he spends 73 million or so per year on player salaries alone. If a new team is established and the fans go to the new team, Sterling gets a financial whipping. in 10 years he will lose upwards of 700 million dollars. He will want to sell before that. Then the situation will exist for him to have zero buyers because the new team will have the fans and sponsors. When he is broke, the league can then take over the team and quietly phase it out in favor of the new team and Mr. Sterling will have been dealt with by society not by thought and speech police. Now lets look at situations that are connected to this that could speed up this process. Mr Sterling lives in a no fault divorce state. His wife will get half. this means that the alternative to him being forced to sell the team because the NBA and society found his comments horrible, he will have to sell just to be able to pay the divorce settlement. I still like the first situation better because all he does is bleed money until he is broke while if he is allowed to sell the team, he will gain a financial life jacket. This should be avoided at all costs. He is a racist and a bigot. We the fans will deal with him and the only obligation I see the NBA being under is to stand up a new team. If we fans are truly outraged,horrified and offended then we will go to the new team in droves.If we are not, if this is something that will blow over,then lets take the focus off Mr. Sterling and get back to watching and playing the fine product the NBA turns out.