Donald T. Sterling is an American business magnate and former attorney. He is the owner of the National Basketball Association's Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling acquired the Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million, and as of the 2013 rankings, the team is valued at $430 million by Forbes magazine, ranking them eighteenth out of thirty teams. At thirty-two seasons of ownership (1981 to present), Sterling is currently the longest-tenured owner in the NBA, after the death of Lakers majority owner Jerry Buss on February 18, 2013; Buss owned the Lakers for thirty-four seasons (1979"2013).