Shelly Sterling wants NBA to lift Donald's 'out of line' lifetime ban

The Sterlings just won't stay away.

Shelly Sterling, wife of disgraced former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, spoke with James Rainey of NBC News in her continued quest to have the league lift its lifetime ban over Donald Sterling from attending NBA games.

"I couldn't understand the severity of the ban. It just seemed a little bit out of line," Shelly Sterling said. "I have talked to (the NBA) several times and I don't know what they will do. Maybe they will and maybe they won't (lift the ban). Maybe it takes a little bit more time."

One year ago, Shelly Sterling pitched the NBA for leniency by citing the case of Cincinnati Reds team owner Marge Schott, who was docked $25,000 and suspended one year after she made racial slurs and anti-Semitic remarks at employees in 1993. The NBA shut down that appeal.

Donald Sterling was banned from attending NBA games and fined $2.5 million following the emergence of a recorded tape in which he made racist comments toward blacks. That was followed by a legal battle in which the NBA eventually arranged to have the Clippers sold to Steve Ballmer for $2 billion in 2014.

To hear Shelly Sterling tell the story, that generous sum was the reward for the "tragedy" suffered by her racist husband.

"I think that, really, at this stage of his life, he is happy, not at the way that it happened, but that he got so much money for it," she said. "He could have never sold it today at that price.... We never know when we are going through it, but sometimes, through tragedy, comes happiness."