By Don Wanlass
Contributing Writer
In a city where image, branding and star power mean everything, the Los Angeles Clippers are finally trying to fit in.
It started when Steve Ballmer bought the team from Donald Sterling in 2014 after Sterling was banned from the league for making disparaging remarks about Blacks. The Clippers had a solid nucleus at the time, led by point guard Chris Paul, forward Blake Griffin and center DeAndre Jordan, but they were still the second NBA team in the Los Angeles market dominated by the Lakers.
In the 10 years that Ballmer has owned the team, the Clippers have made inroads against the Lakers, particularly on the court.
Over the years, dating back to the Clippers’ early history as the Buffalo Braves and the six years they spent in San Diego, the Lakers have dominated the Clippers. Dating back to 1970, the Lakers have 152 wins and 86 losses against the Braves/Clippers.
But that has changed. Going into the Feb. 28 game between the two teams, the Clippers are 34-8 against the Lakers over the last 11 seasons. The Lakers winning percentage over the Clippers has dropped from .738 to .638.
Next season, the Clippers will move into their new home in Inglewood, the Intuit Dome. They will no longer have to share an arena with their rivals down the hall. They can schedule games on Saturday nights instead of having to play at 12:30 p.m. so the arena can be converted into a hockey rink for the L.A. Kings that night.
In preparation for the move to Inglewood next season, the Clippers unveiled their new look Feb. 26. According to the press release the team issued, the new look established a “set of marks that blend the team’s past, present and focus on the future in a familiar but elevated colorway of naval blue, ember red, and Pacific blue.”
The new look includes three different jerseys, with star players Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and James Harden being pictured in the jerseys.
“The new primary logo features a Clippers ‘C’ that surrounds the points of a compass and an oncoming ship with basketball seams on the hull, a nod to the organization’s maritime roots and a symbol of its direction,” the press release said.
“We have been on a long journey, gathering feedback and insights from across Clipper Nation,” said Gillian Zucker, president of business operations for both the Clippers and Intuit Dome. “We listened to as many voices as we could and then engaged specialists to arrive at a timeless design that blends bedrocks of our past and our future. Our new marks are meaningful and strong, capturing our roots and our aspirations.”
Those aspirations include an NBA championship, in Ballmer’s eyes the sooner the better.
When Ballmer bought the team 10 years ago, many thought he was doing so with a mind set on relocating the team in Seattle, where he is from. Seattle basketball fans have missed the Seattle Supersonics since the day they moved and Seattle remains among the most likely locations for an expansion team whenever the NBA decides to expand again.
Instead, Ballmer decided to establish himself in Los Angeles and take on the Lakers head to head. Over the last several years the Clippers have had more on-court success than the Lakers with the exception of 2020 when the Lakers won a COVID-complicated abbreviated schedule and the NBA title.
Ballmer knows it takes a winner to be noticed in Los Angeles. The Chargers are just finding that out seven years after moving back.
At this writing, the Clippers are 37-19 on the season, in fourth place in the NBA Western Conference standings, three games out of first place and 7½ games ahead of the Lakers, who are in 10th place in the West and on the verge of another berth in the play-in tournament.
The Clippers have the seventh best overall record in the league, a record they have achieved by beating the teams they should beat. Unfortunately, the Clippers are only 6-8 against teams that have a better record than them.
And the schedule is going to get tough. As we head in to March, the Clippers play the Minnesota Timberwolves, who lead the NBA Western Conference, and the Milwaukee Bucks, the third-place team in the NBA Eastern Conference, twice each.
After the all-star game, the Clippers play more games than any other team in the league and they face one of the tougher schedules. In addition to the Timberwolves and Bucks, they have two games remaining against the Philadelphia 76ers and the Phoenix Suns, two teams that should be in the playoffs.
In fact, the back-to-back home-and-away games against the Suns April 9 and 10 could determine which team finishes fourth and which team finishes fifth in the west.
The Clippers are also concerned about Paul George’s injured knee. He sat out the Lakers game Feb. 28 after missing the previous game Feb. 25 against the Sacramento Kings, who won 123-107.
The Clippers traded most of their depth — particularly at forward — in November when they acquired Harden from Philadelphia. Coach Tyronn Lue is using only eight or nine players a game and that is liable to take a toll when three of your five starters and a key reserve are all over 30.
Whatever the remainder of the 2023-24 has in store for the Clippers, they are looking forward to their new home in Inglewood, in the shadow of SoFi Stadium.
Ballmer has to be envious of Rams’ owner Stan Kroenke, who won a Super Bowl in his first seven years after moving back to L.A. He also is hoping he, too, can find success with a move to Inglewood.
TOUGH SCHEDULE: Whoever made the Lakers schedule for the end of February and early March didn’t do the team any favors.
After playing the Clippers Feb. 28, the Lakers end February the next night with a home game against the Golden State Warriors. They then play the Denver Nuggets on the road March 2 and return to Crypto.com Arena March 4 to face the Oklahoma Thunder. That’s four potential playoff teams in three different cities in six nights.
Those are followed by four more games against likely playoff teams including the Sacramento Kings twice, the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Milwaukee Bucks, and then another game against the Warriors. If the Lakers can go 6-3 in those nine games they will solidify their spot in the play-in tournament.
The way they have been playing lately though, a 5-4 record is more likely.
The Lakers still aren’t a team that plays the same way every night.
LeBron James and Anthony Davis are two of the best players in the league, but Austin Reaves and D’Angelo Russell go hot and cold and if both are cold the same night the Lakers are going to lose.
And as the calendar moves toward March, the chances that Jarred Vanderbilt and Gabe Vincent return from injuries enough to make a difference become slimmer and slimmer.
Still, with James and Davis, the Lakers can do a lot of damage in the playoffs, if they can get there. They are currently four games ahead of the Utah Jazz for the final play-in slot, a gap that is too big of a challenge for this year’s Jazz team.
And last year, the Lakers proved just how dangerous they can be in the playoffs, marching through the play-in tournament and through most of the Western Conference before running into the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals.
They are hoping to repeat last year’s accomplishments, but it won’t be easy.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS: The last time spring training was this exciting for Los Angeles Dodgers fans was never.
The off-season acquisitions of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto coming on the heels of three years in a row of 100 or more win seasons, have put expectations at new levels for the Dodgers.
So far, the players seem to be living up to those expectations. The Dodgers have won five of their first six spring training games. The sixth game was a 7-7 tie against the Angels.
In those six games, the Dodgers have scored 47 runs. In their spring opener against the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers scored eight runs in the first inning on their way to a 14-1 win.
Freddie Freeman hit a home run on the first pitch he saw in spring training. Ohtani waited until his third at bat to hit a home run.
The starting pitchers have collectively allowed two runs and seven hits while striking out 11 in 9-1/3 innings. And Yamamoto hasn’t pitched yet.
The Dodgers are only three weeks away from opening the regular season, thanks to Major League Baseball scheduling them to play in South Korea March 20 and 21.
The Dodgers will leave Arizona after a game with the Seattle Mariners March 13, fly to South Korea where they will play a couple of exhibition games against local teams before facing the Padres twice in games that count.
They then fly home in time to face the Angels in three exhibition games March 24-26 before resuming the regular season March 28 with a four-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals. All that travel is sure to take its toll on the players, but at least they are opening against the Padres, who the Dodgers have beaten like a drum in recent years, except in the 2022 playoffs.
The Dodgers also strengthened their roster this week by trading outfielder Manuel Margot, who was acquired from Tampa Bay with pitcher Tyler Glasnow in the offseason, to the Minnesota Twins. That made room on the roster for the Dodgers to resign veteran utility player Kike Hernandez.
Hernandez is a player whose value doesn’t always show up in statistics. He can play all seven infield and outfield positions, hits left-handed pitching well and has proven to be a clutch post-season performer.
He also is one of the more boisterous cheerleaders on the bench and a fan favorite.
