The lawsuit maintains that Baylor was “discriminated against and unceremoniously released from his position with the team on account of his age and his race” and that he was “grossly underpaid during his tenure with the Clippers, never earning more than $350,000 per year, when compared with the compensation scheme for general managers employed by every other team in the NBA.”
The NBA is named in the lawsuit, according to Douglas’ fax, as “a joint venturer/partner of condoning, adopting and ratifying this discriminatory practice since the league is fully aware of salaries paid to all of the general managers.”
I guess it's not for us to say those claims were bogus since we don't know what happened behind closed doors, but if racism was an issue, why did he stick around for 22 years? If the organisation itself held racial prejudice, why did they employ him for 22 years? As their attorney noted:
“It’s hard to believe that he would now make these ridiculous claims after the organization stood by him during 22 years and only three playoff appearances. It would be hard to find any sports team that has demonstrated greater loyalty to its general manager.”
That being said, one hopes that there truly was no racial discrimination afoot. The Clippers have an embarrassing enough reputation for their oncourt performance year-to-year without ugliness like that as well.
