TWiCH: One Year Ago Today, Judge Michael Levanas Was Our Hero

We all remember last summer, don't we. It's hard to believe that it has only been one year, what with the distraction of the Deandre Jordan hostage situation in Houston a couple weeks back, but that is exactly what it has been. One year ago, on July 30, 2014, Clippers fans of the world rejoiced. The wicked witch of basketball was finally ordered to stop fighting, and to allow his wife to throw a $2 million dollar bucket of water on him, thus melting him away into basketball history.

No longer would Donald T. Sterling be able to use his teams locker room to show off all his beautiful black bodies. No longer would he be able to heckle his underachieving players from the sidelines. And no longer would he be able to fool us Clippers fans, the ones who put money in his pocket to watch his under-talented teams lose day in and day out, into giving up our hard earned cash. He would no longer have control of the team he stole from San Diego to bring to Los Angeles, to be in the shadows of his good buddy Dr. Jerry Buss' Lakers.

When Superior Court Judge Michael Levanas ruled in Shelly Sterling's favor, it allowed a free path to the already agreed upon sale to Steve Ballmer. Ballmer had been successful with Microsoft, where he made his fortune. Originally, he was part of the group seeking to bring basketball back to Seattle ever since Oklahoma City stole the team from under their noses. He almost had his way, as part of the group that was almost successful in bringing the Sacramento Kings to the Emerald City. But it never happened, and when Ballmer saw the opportunity to buy an NBA team, in the second biggest market in the league, with a championship core already in place, he quickly opened up his checkbook and paid top dollar. He has improved every aspect of the team (other than the jerseys and logo) from the game time experience (do we remember Fergie's flash mob performance during a timeout) to spending money to make the Clippers better (would the Clippers have paid to keep Deandre Jordan if DTS was still the owner?).

In the end, Judge Michael Levanas should be considered a Clippers hero, for it is he who cleared the way and thus helped avoid further court distractions and delays, allowing for the Clippers to finally become a serious and legit NBA franchise.