Los Angeles Clippers
The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, beginning with the 2024–25 NBA season. Previously, the Clippers played their home games at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles from 1999 to 2024, which they had shared with the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association, and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League. They are frequently referred to by their fans as "the Clips" or "LAC".
The franchise was founded as the Buffalo Braves in 1970 as an expansion team. Led by Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo, the Braves reached the NBA playoffs three times during their eight seasons in Buffalo. Conflicts with the Canisius Golden Griffins over Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and the sale of the franchise led to their relocation from Buffalo to San Diego, California, in 1978 and subsequent rebranding as the San Diego Clippers, in reference to the sailing ships seen in San Diego Bay. The team saw little success on the court and missed the playoffs during all six of their years in San Diego.
In 1984, owner Donald Sterling controversially relocated the franchise to Los Angeles without NBA approval, which was permitted following legal action between the league and Sterling. Over the course of their first 27 seasons in Los Angeles, the Clippers qualified for the postseason only four times and won a single playoff round. As a result, they have been frequently described as a perennial loser in American professional sports, drawing unfavorable comparisons to the historically successful Lakers.
The Clippers' reputation improved during the 2010s, which saw them transform into consistent postseason contenders. Aided by the Lob City lineup of Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, and Chris Paul, the team qualified for the playoffs in six consecutive seasons from 2012 to 2017 and won two consecutive division titles in 2013 and 2014, both firsts for the franchise. Despite this success, the Clippers struggled in the postseason and were frequently eliminated in the Conference Semifinals; the team reached the conference finals for the first time in 2021. To date, they are the oldest franchise in North American professional sports to have never played in a championship game.
History
1970–1978: Buffalo Braves
The franchise began in Western New York as the Buffalo Braves, one of three NBA expansion franchises that began play in the 1970–71 season, along with the Portland Trail Blazers and Cleveland Cavaliers. They played their home games at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, along with another Buffalo team that would begin play that year, the National Hockey League's Buffalo Sabres.After two bad seasons, the Braves' fortunes started to change under coach Jack Ramsay and star center Bob McAdoo. McAdoo led the NBA in scoring for three consecutive seasons and was named the league's MVP in the 1974–75 season. The Braves qualified for the playoffs three times in a row, losing twice to the eventual Eastern Conference champions. Despite the team's modest success in Buffalo, Braves owner Paul Snyder and the league found it impossible to schedule home games at the auditorium because of the Canisius Golden Griffins men's basketball team, which had a pre-existing lease on the arena and priority on game dates over the Braves, with the next best dates in turn taken by the more successful Sabres.
At a time when the NBA was nearing a nadir and the league did not have its current prestige, the Griffins saw the Braves as a threat to their own success, and purposely scheduled better dates at the arena to prevent the Braves from succeeding. As a result, after a failed attempt to sell the team to an owner who intended to move it to South Florida, Snyder sold the team to Kentucky Colonels owner John Y. Brown, Jr., who decimated the team's roster, traded away all of its stars, and drove attendance down to the point where they could break their own lease on the arena.
Eventually, Brown met with Celtics owner Irv Levin in 1978 so they could trade franchise ownerships. Southern California resident Levin then decided to move the Braves to San Diego, something the league would have never allowed him to do with the Celtics. Asked about the move, Levin nominated a shorter commute for himself as a key reason.
1978–1984: San Diego Clippers
In 1978, San Diego welcomed the Braves franchise to the city. The city's previous NBA franchise, the San Diego Rockets, had relocated to Houston seven years earlier in 1971. In between, the city hosted an ABA franchise, the San Diego Conquistadors, though that team folded partway through its fourth season after they had been renamed the Sails. San Diego team officials did not think "Braves" was a proper representative nickname for the club in San Diego, and a local naming contest ultimately decided on "Clippers", in reference to the city being known for the great sailing ships that passed through San Diego Bay. The first head coach of the Clippers was chosen to be Gene Shue, a respected tactician. He preferred a fast playing style with many scoring opportunities. Only three players from the Braves started in the team: Randy Smith, Swen Nater, and Scott Lloyd. Other starting players included Kermit Washington, and Sidney Wicks. World B. Free was also brought in from, the Philadelphia 76ers in exchange for a future first round pick.The 1978–79 season started poorly, with the Clippers' first win coming in their fourth game, against the Chicago Bulls. The team lost 12 of its 18 first games and dropped to the bottom of the Pacific Division. Player Kevin Kunnert argued they had the "killer instinct of a field mouse". The worst loss came against the San Antonio Spurs, with a loss of 163 to 125. Nevertheless, within weeks, Free had become the leading scorer, as well as becoming a public icon. He finished second overall in NBA scoring average, with 28.9 per game. Shue, meanwhile, tried to create a team spirit by creating a common social life. By the All-Star game the Clippers had improved, winning half of their 54 games, good enough for sixth in the Western Conference. Aiming for one of the six play-off spots for the Conference, they managed to win eight games in a row, and then another five games consecutively. Playing at the San Diego Sports Arena, the Clippers posted a record of 43–39 in their first season in California, leaving them two wins shy of the final playoff spot. It was also the first season in Southern California for long-time announcer Ralph Lawler, who began his association with the franchise.
The 1979–80 season saw the Clippers begin to struggle, despite adding center Bill Walton, a San Diego native who was two years removed from winning an NBA Championship and the NBA Most Valuable Player Award with the Portland Trail Blazers. Walton missed 68 games in his first season in San Diego due to foot injuries. San Diego finished 35–47, as Walton and other key players missed significant time due to injuries. Free again finished second in league scoring, with 30.2 points per game. Paul Silas replaced Shue as head coach the following season, and the Clippers finished 36–46, again missing the postseason. Walton missed the entire season due to foot injuries, while Free was traded to the Golden State Warriors in exchange for guard Phil Smith.
The 1981–82 season brought ultimately unwelcome changes to the franchise as Levin sold the team to Los Angeles–area real estate developer and attorney Donald Sterling for $12.5 million. The Clippers experienced poor play, as foot injuries again caused Walton to miss the entire season, and the team limped to a 17–65 record. Rumors of a move to Sterling's hometown of Los Angeles and franchise mismanagement plagued the team immediately from the onset of Sterling's acquisition. On one occasion, Sterling was fined $10,000 by the NBA, the largest sum ever levied by the NBA against an owner at the time, for publicly guaranteeing the Clippers would lose enough games to contend for a high enough draft pick to select Ralph Sampson. On another, he was fined for flying his players to away games in coach seats on commercial airliners, a violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement. Hotels refused to house the Clippers because of alleged non-payment for previous accommodations on multiple occasions. A bus company in Newark once stranded the team at the airport after Sterling failed to pay for previous trips, which nearly caused the team to miss a scheduled regular-season game that day against the New Jersey Nets.
Sterling attempted to relocate the franchise to Los Angeles in June 1982 but the NBA denied his request. Sterling then filed an unsuccessful antitrust lawsuit against the league, which subsequently filed a countersuit against the club and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, which Sterling had a tentative agreement with to become the franchise's new home. The attempted move, combined with the franchise mismanagement issues, prompted an investigation of the Clippers by an NBA committee of other owners. In September of that year, the committee recommended that Sterling's ownership be terminated, having found that he was late in paying creditors and players. Days before a league scheduled vote in October to remove Sterling, he agreed to sell the team, and the league sought buyers who would keep the franchise in San Diego. At the suggestion of David Stern, then the league's vice president, Sterling was able to make a deal to maintain his position as owner, by instead handing over operations duties of the franchise to Alan Rothenberg, who became the team's president. A few months later in February 1983, Stern called the Clippers a "first-class" franchise, and the ouster of Sterling was no longer pursued. Later in 1983, Larry Fleisher, then the general counsel of the National Basketball Players Association, stated
In 1984, Sterling, after again being denied permission from the NBA to do so, moved the Clippers to Los Angeles. The NBA subsequently fined Sterling $25 million for violating league rules and filed a lawsuit demanding the franchise be returned to San Diego. The league threatened to dissolve the franchise if ownership did not comply and return the team to San Diego. Sterling then filed another antitrust lawsuit against the league. This time, thanks to the recent court decision that allowed Al Davis to move the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League to Los Angeles, it appeared Sterling would win his case.
In September 1987, the league agreed to drop their lawsuit against the Clippers over the team's relocation to Los Angeles in exchange for Sterling dropping his case against the league, allowing him to keep the team in Los Angeles and decreasing his fine to $6 million.
Forty years after the NBA Clippers left San Diego, the Ontario Clippers of the NBA G League would relocate from Ontario, California, starting with the 2024–25 season, adopting the San Diego Clippers name as well as a modernized version of the "three sails" logo.