Short answers, pulled from the story.
Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA for life on the 29th of April, 2014, after TMZ Sports released a private recording in which Sterling told his mistress not to bring Black people to Clippers games and expressed discomfort with her associating publicly with Black people. NBA commissioner Adam Silver also fined him $2.5 million, the maximum allowed under the NBA constitution.
Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, paid $2 billion for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014. The sale was negotiated by Donald Sterling's wife Shelly and closed on the 12th of August, 2014.
Donald Sterling owned the Clippers for 33 years, from 1981 to 2014. He purchased the franchise when it was still based in San Diego for $12.5 million and was forced to sell in 2014 following his lifetime ban from the NBA.
In 2003, the Housing Rights Center of Los Angeles filed a discrimination suit against Sterling on behalf of 18 tenants, alleging racially motivated management of his properties. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Sterling for using race as a factor in filling apartment buildings; he settled that lawsuit in November 2009 for $2.7 million.
Sterling built a substantial Los Angeles real estate portfolio beginning with a 26-unit apartment building in Beverly Hills. By April 2014 he owned 162 properties in Los Angeles, including Sterling Plaza, an Art Deco building on Wilshire Boulevard originally constructed in 1930 by MGM cofounder Louis B. Mayer.
Sterling was born Donald Tokowitz and filed a formal petition to change his surname on the 9th of December, 1959, when he was 25. He and his wife Shelly cited the difficulty peers had pronouncing "Tokowitz" and their belief that the new name would bring financial benefits.