‘Clipped’ turns Donald Sterling’s fall from the Clippers into a solid-gold series

In a rare victory for the Clippers over the Lakers, “Clipped” is the second series devoted to one of Los Angeles’ NBA teams but also the superior one, chronicling the spectacular fall of owner Donald Sterling. Rotating among four principal players, with Ed O’Neill as Sterling, it’s an all-star lineup covering a story filled with the kind of outlandish characters that require little embellishment.

In a rare victory for the Clippers over the Lakers, “Clipped” is the second recent drama series devoted to one of Los Angeles’ NBA teams but also the superior one, chronicling the spectacular fall of owner Donald Sterling. Rotating among four principal players, with Ed O’Neill as Sterling, it’s an all-star lineup covering a story filled with the kind of outlandish characters that require little embellishment. The title actually has multiple meanings, since audio clips of Sterling saying wildly racist things about Black people attending Clippers games figured prominently in his downfall. Yet “Clipped” operates on four distinct if overlapping tracks, each nicely fleshed out and delineated over a relatively brisk six episodes. There’s Sterling, obviously, whose imperious mentality toward his mostly Black players included parading his wealthy friends into the locker room to let them gawk at the athletes. In one of the creepier moments, he takes star Blake Griffin (Austin Scott) by the hand and leads him around, like a child, at a posh party the players uncomfortably attend. Still, the Sterling story really rests on the two key women in his life at the time: His wife, Shelly (Jacki Weaver), who had long put up with her husband’s infidelities; and his assistant, V. Stiviano (Cleopatra Coleman), an aspiring reality TV star who became the featured player in a different kind of reality show by recording her boss, leading to the revelation of his ugly utterances to the world. Finally, there’s Doc Rivers (Laurence Fishburne), the well-traveled coach who took the Clippers job well aware of the headwinds associated with its eccentric owner (“I like a challenge,” he explains early on). Even before the scandal erupted, Rivers had to deal with Sterling prefacing questions about personnel decisions with lines like, “My dermatologist says everybody’s looking at this guy.” While there’s less basketball than “Winning Time,” HBO’s series about the 1980s Lakers, “Clipped” benefits from the fact so many of those involved with the Clippers during this stretch were so flat-out weird, no one more so than Sterling. (It’s almost helpful to watch old clips of him to fully appreciate that O’Neill’s performance isn’t a major exaggeration.)