Shelly Sterling intends to fight to keep her ownership stake in the Los Angeles Clippers despite the lifetime ban leveled against her husband Donald Sterling.

Doc Rivers acknowledged that "it would be a very hard situation" if Shelly Sterling remains as an owner of the Clippers.

"I don't even want to comment on it because I don't know yet," Rivers said. "I think it would be a very hard situation, I'll say that much. I think it would be very difficult. I guarantee you every person wouldn't be on board with it. Whether I would or not, I'm not going to say, I just know that would be a very difficult situation for everybody."

Rivers said that "because of the relationship" she's had with her husband it would be difficult for her to continue on as owner "because we wouldn't know who was really in charge."

"Despite all of the furor during the past week, Mrs. Sterling still has property rights," her attorney Pierce O'Donnell said. "She has worked tirelessly over the years to build up a franchise that was once a cellar dweller into a sports powerhouse. She has the same right as anyone else in America to enjoy and control the fruits of those labors, and that includes deciding whether to keep or sell her 50 percent interest in the team."