So let’s see if we can come to an agreement here regarding what can and cannot be done fairly:
1) The NBA has the right NOT to associate their name with you because of what you did.
2) The NBA can pressure you to sell your team, but you are not legally obligated to succumb to their pressure.
As a result, you can’t associate the Clippers with the NBA even if you still own the team ( just like a McDonald’s franchisee cannot use the name of McDonald if they for any moral reason, refuse to be associated with you ).
3) Because of #2 above, what options do you have?
You’ll be legally obligated, but they don’t force you to take the first offer, and the deal has to be approved by the league.
As a result they can contract the team, or “buy” the team from you if you just can’t seem to scrape up a good offer yourself (ref: New Orleans Hornets).
Your options are to not anger the league. A lot of the problem Sterling is having now stems from his long history of irritating the league without crossing the punishment threshold. Decades of fielding a bad team, sometimes making moves that seem to have no other purpose but to make the team bad; heckling his own players loud enough to be picked up by the network microphones (remember he likes being courtside); other racially charged issues that managed to avoid the national spotlight. The question for Sterling has always been when he’d finally be involved in something big enough for the league to land on him, not if. For 30 years people in the league have been waiting for their excuse on Sterling. Any other owner does this they get fined, maybe suspended from games for a couple of weeks. But they don’t have Sterling’s baggage.