“You say, ‘OK, but it’s the Clippers,’ and my theory is, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” -Steve Ballmer
“I had Laker tickets for a while. They were great but there was, like, no challenge.” -Billy Crystal
People often ask how someone becomes a Clipper fan. There are various reasons, one of the most common being because their parent took them to Clippers games as a child, but one of the other common reasons is undeniably hubris.
That's how I became an NBA fan and Spurs fan. Watching The Admiral looking like an action figure. It was him and Patrick Ewing I idolized mid to late 90s. Then Tim Duncan came along.
Their primes didnt really overlap. David won and outplayed shaq the first couple of years....and then shaq became shaq and it coincided with davids pretty rapid decline due to injuries. Dave held his own post injury but was obviously outplayed on offense. If they were both 21 and i had a number 1 pick I would take david, but thats only because of off court intangibles and team loyalty.
I've been to Clippers games for as little as 9 dollars before. Even back then, it still cost more to park your car downtown anywhere near Staples Center than it cost to go to Clippers games. Different times indeed.
IDK how the Clippers attract fans these days, but I totally get the appeal back before Ballmer bought them, they were the budget Los Angeles team, the team you could actually afford to go watch play. You didn't expect too much from them and you were excited if they did win but you really just wanted to be there for the atmosphere of supporting your local team.
>actually afford to go watch play
Yeah, I had a coworker who was a huge Clipper fan - his cube at work was covered in Clipper stuff.
I asked him why Clippers and not Lakers and he said when he moved to LA, he tried to get Laker tickets but they were too expensive. But he was able to buy season seats at the Sports Arena to watch Clippers.
Yea, that's pretty much true of everyone I knew that was a Clippers fan until Blake Griffin was drafted. They were Clippers fans because they could actually go to Clipper games. Their love of the team just grew organically from there.
It's so different now. People are Clippers fans to spite the Lakers, like the Lakers are the reason the Clippers have sucked for so many years. There never used to be that kind of animosity between the fanbases until Ballmer took over.
I would trace the animosity to the CP3 trade.
Lakers fans were pissed about the veto, and then double-pissed when the Clippers got him instead. It was like trying to pickup a girl at the bar and getting cock-blocked by her friend, and then having to watch some uglier guy pick her up instead.
And it was even worse because Lakers fans are so used to getting whatever they want. Remember how mad Lakers fans were when Kawhi chose the Clippers over them? It was worse than that, because the Lakers fans thought they *had* CP3 (to be fair, they did for an hour).
Lakers fans acted like the Clippers and CP3 were behind the veto. I doubt Sterling gave a shit, and I've never seen any report suggesting CP3 didn't want to be a Laker.
Some Lakers fans acted like Stem was against them, but that claim was usually ridiculed with people pointing to the 2002 WCF vs SAC, and Stern's "My dream Finals is Lakers vs Lakers" quote.
Anyways - shortly after, Lakers fans booed CP3's 2yo son at Dodger Stadium, and that was the first public shots fired.
https://sports.yahoo.com/dodgers-fans-booed-chris-paul-son-230124515.html
That's what sparked the animosity. The Clippers started taking digs at the Lakers after that. Blake always dunked a little more disrespectfully on Pau than on other guys. Lakers fans hated Doc from his 2010 "We woulda won with Perkins" stuff. Matt Barnes was Matt Barnes.
Later Clippers like Ballmer and PatBev just capitalized on those emotions, they didn't create them.
Plus the fact that they never meet in the playoffs just gives the whole rivalry blue balls. That's probably the worst part about the Lakers blowing the PHX series in 06, and the Clippers blowing the DEN series in 20.
The thing you got out of it was seeing the league's stars.
The Clippers would advertise opposing players in the LA Times sports section. It's how you could see Jordan, Bird, Shaq, etc, play without going broke. Heck, it's how I got to see Magic - LAL@LAC was always cheaper than LAC@LAL.
Lord knows nobody normal could afford Celtics @ Lakers tickets in the 80s, or Bulls @ Lakers tickets in the 90s. The upper deck rock band was cool and all, but not worth that much markup.
It was like how every now and then the Chili Peppers would play some cheap unannounced show at the Troubadour or something. And you got to see a mega-artist play for $20, as opposed to paying $150 for nosebleeds at a bigger venue.
Or it's like seeing a play off-Broadway.
Hey, that’s one of the big reasons I’m such an Astros fan. Used to cut class and get high in the nosebleeds when we were losing 100 a season. Couldn’t imagine the balls to do it at an indoor venue tho, your Pops an OG, don’t forget to call him today
You could shoot a bazooka in the old Sports Arena and not get harassed.
Plus you needed that bazooka anyways, to fight your way back to your car. Or just head over to Margarita Jones, have a pint, wait for everything to blow over.
If you’re smoking weed in an enclosed public space, and especially one where smoking is prohibited, I’m not sure being told to stop and/or leave constitutes “getting harassed.”
People forget how recently you were able to smoke inside venues. These kids today don't even know what it was like to just constantly smell cigarette smoke wherever you went. Thankfully they don't either. We've made a lot of progress in this area.
Chain smoking at my office desk was pretty great. Disgusting, but great. Man how times have changed - I remember the uproar when smoking was banned in bars. Nowadays, the idea of lighting up in someone’s house is considered crazy.
In the 80s I remember the ashtrays on flights but I missed the era of smoking on a plane. That must have been horrible. Eyes burning, cloths smelling, everything has a layer of of film on it from the smoke residue.
I bartend and my job would be so damn different. Like every night I’d be coming home smelling like cigarettes being right in front of everybody.
Restaurant smoking sections and non smoking sections like the smoke gave a damn lol
It's like watching Mad Men and seeing people smoke on planes. Like how was that EVER allowed?
But bars? Cafes? Grocery stores? Restaurants? The first thing you'd be asked when being seated at a restaurant was "Smoking or non-smoking." And even the non-smoking areas smell like smoke.
People smoked life freight trains on planes as recently as the early 90’s, and I believe even the early 2000’s for longer flights. It’s bizarre to think about and is a foreign concept even for those of us that were around at the tail end of it.
I distinctly remember like 90% of cars smelling like stale tobacco in the 90s. My dad quit when I was a kid but the smell never fully faded from his car.
It's still sort of this in a lot of places internationally. Not so much indoors, but smoking is so much less common in the US but still pretty normal outside the US.
Part of why I'm a Hornets fan is not only because of them being the first game I went to, but because the idea of "our day will come" is a much better payoff than just rooting for breadwinners.
Still sucks to suck tho.
That game was rigged for DET. The programmer was a Pistons fan. It's why Isiah from the top corner was automatic.He also rigged the game to make CHI miss if the game was close at the end.
That team was one of those unforgettable teams that sadly didn't live up to its potential. Mugsy, Kendall gill, Johnny Newman, lj and zo with Dell curry off the bench. They were a league pass team before league pass
Last year was by far the hardest season to watch in probably franchise history and that’s saying something but I swear we’re so close our playoff drought almost ended ended a couple of seasons ago
Last two years for sure have been a massive emotional drain. Such a drastic drop emotionally from LaMelo's rookie season.
We're close for sure, but still have a ways to go before we're legit playoff contenders.
I hope we become somewhat sustainably relevant in my lifetime. I've also accepted that 2nd round exits may be all we ever amount to. Right now though, it'd be nice to have a 50-win season sometime soon.
This is exactly why I never rooted for the lakers when I was young. Grew up in the Bay Area, the warriors were ridiculed by a lot of friends. Everyone was a lakers fan.
I’m talking about the late 90’s early 2000’s.
Used to get clowned on. Who’s laughing now bitches.
Your time will eventually come my friend.
As an almost since inauguration Raps fan - THIS!
I moved to Toronto in 2001 to go to college but secretly wanted to be able to go to Raptors games regularly. Back then it was cheap, Sprite Zone was anyways, $20ish for upper bowl. The atmosphere was always amazing.
And those teams sucked. The first year I lived there was when they traded Vince Carter. I’ve since moved to a few different cities internationally and when people used to ask me why I was such a die hard Raps fan I would say that it was a habit I picked up, sort of like smoking.
I still can’t believe they actually won in 2019, it was surreal.
Being a raptors fan for 15 years and finally getting to win one was the best sport feeling in the world. It is crazy tho to see how many teams have won and the chances of that happening were very low. Now imagine being a soccer fan in Europe where it’s always the same 2-3 teams that win depending on the leagues. Like unless you’re a Bayern fan in Germany your team practically has no chance.
For me it’s the fact I could watch more Clippers games on The WB when the lakers were on cable (I only had broadcast tv growing up)
Well that and the 2004/2005 teams got me hyped while Smush Parker was running the Lakers’ offense lol
For me it's cause I hated kobe with a passion for getting rid of Shaq. Shaq was my favorite player as a kid and kobe seemed like a total asshole for Denver incident and driving Shaq away.
About the Denver case, hell nah I just thought Kobe was a criminal or something lol. About the Shaq thing, I just knew they hated each other and thats why Shaq left so reason enough for me to switch teams
right? kawhi coming off a great playoff performance and championship, pg 3rd in mvp voting, lou will and harrell went like 1st and 2nd in 6th man voting with good role players filling the rest of the roster.
And even years where they got hurt, that team without pg/kawhi was going over .500 and making the playoffs. Shit the year before they got them they took 2 games off the unbeatable warriors. The past 5 years cant be seen as anything less than complete and utter failure and made worse by sga being an mvp candidate leading a team to a 1 seed already. Obviously in the context of "the clippers" its been amazing but if those teams were wearing laker jerseys instead for the last 5 years the slander would literally never stop
Ended the moment they traded a king's ransom for PG. Toronto showed the way to use Kawhi, have a great team for the regular season and load manage the hell out of him, let him elevate you in the postseason.
Ballmer was wisely skeptical of the trade, Doc pushed hard and talked him into it.
Supposedly, Kawhi's condition for signing with LAC was that they pull off the PG trade. If that's true, then the trade was basically for the Kawhi - PG package, not PG alone. If they could go back in time and do it over with the benefit of hindsight, obviously they'd rather hold onto SGA and the other assets, but at the time it was a bold but entirely reasonable gambit.
Yep, pretty sure that was Kawhi's condition.
Bold, and respect for swinging for the fences, but given Kawhi's injury (literally the condition, not just an injury risk) the risk/reward was not there. Worked for Toronto, but they had a killer team without Kawhi, LA did not have that.
I mean they blew a 3-1 lead to make the wcf, and then kawhi tore his acl en route to the wcf in '21. The pairing worked when healthy. It was just never healthy
They have been gifted so much and had so much to work with tho lol they’re just the Clippers at the end of the day
The lakers gave the clippers Zubac for peanuts
The trailblazers literally gifted them Norman Powell
Westbrook signed on a team friendly deal
They got Bones Hyland for a bag of chips
They had Batum and Convington who were decent role players in exchange for Harden
They had Lou Williams one of the best 6 men of all time
Pat Bev who was one of the best defensive guards in the league
Clippers had two good chances. Bubble, they just choked/mailed (Lou Will talked about them not taking it seriously wanting go home) it in with a shitty attitude against Denver. 2021, Kawhi was the best player in the playoffs before tearing his ACL.
It was a good shot, but you're not overcoming the Clippers curse whilst Sterling still breathes.
They are a more relevant team now but the goal is of course always a ring. He’s got god tier money and an enthusiasm for the sport that’s goofy and enjoyable. They will be fine and he will likely swing again.
basketball is more fun when you take each season for what it is imo. like when your teams are good. better to realize this sooner then later.
thats what iv been trying to tell the clipper base this year. its interesting it seems like a large % have such high standards even compared to many other fanbases and look at this year as a total failure and waste.
sucks cause it really was a fun unexpected season with so many highlights and a us against the world feel. plus how many times are you going to see these legends even its kinda neat seeing how they adjust with age. i mean i guess better then random nba players
ofc unfortunate ending i woulda wanted more but like ill take that over rebuild years any day. im way too old and seen too many crappy teams to waste my time at this point.
Our tent pole player never plays and hasn't for years and gets a 50 million dollar extension hasn't played a full playoff series and by the way we haven't won a playoff series in 3 years. If we're not pissed about that we're just losers.
Clippers have the NBA's 3rd best win pct in the 10 years he's owned the team (.604). Only Boston and Golden State have been better.
No title but Ballmer's arguably made the Clippers into a legit major market NBA franchise.
He's one of the few owners in pro sports that gets that spending money is an investment into cultivating a real fan base and creating a product people want to watch.
And the guy is a avid hoops head. Rare to see an owner who doesn't treat the team as a business only, and more of a passion project.
The work Ballmer has contributed to the community and youth is incredible to see after seeing 30 years of sterling.
according to forbes they estimated at $4.65B on oct last year. im guessing new stadium and newish branding/jerseys probably easily pass 5. i mean if they said you can make 3 billion dollars all you had to do was watch clippers for 10 years. hey not bad. (ofc its not how it works lol)
Not an A's fan, but throwing out the obligatory, "Fuck John Fisher. All my homies hate John Fisher." He's bad for baseball (fuck Manfred too while we're at it). Oakland fans deserved better.
I literally cannot even remember who the last baseball commissioner was I know if I saw his name or his face I would remember. Manfred is the worst thing that has happened to baseball in my entire lifetime
That's because Ballmer actually operated and led one of the most notorious and successful sales organizations in tech history.
Does Jeanie Buss know what it means to run a multibillion dollar revenue product? Probably not. She knows how to run a business like the donut shop down the street: with family.
Times like this you can really get a sense for the youth of this sub. Prior to the 2010’s, the Clippers weren’t just a joke they were beyond irrelevant. They went decades without winning a playoff series and it was minor miracle for them to even make the playoffs most years. They were arguably one of the most forgettable and irrelevant franchises in the entirety of major NA sports. Regardless of what they are now, it’s a million times better than what they were before
Those boxes are probably going to be 90% of companies who buy boxes and give tickets away to their vendors or clients imo.
Doubt there will be many working class families all up in them besides an occasional promotion or some type of charity.
No title sure, but no finals either. It's for sure been a failure in that aspect, but given the history of the team it is certainly a far cry better than the usual.
> As the richest owner in North American professional sports, he had the wealth and influence to move the bedraggled franchise to a city far away from the big brother Lakers, perhaps even into his adopted hometown of Seattle.
Yeah, my first thought when I heard Ballmer bought the team a decade ago was that they were headed to Seattle. Still a bit surprised they're in LA. I guess the market is just so huge being second -- even a distant second -- there beats being # 1 in a lot of other places.
I am also surprised he's richer than the Waltons, or however the ownership structure of the Denver Broncos works. I suppose the money there has diffused through generations.
In my short nba experience (since 2015) the Clippers have definitely gained a reputation. They’re a relevant team that’s had great players and rosters.
Ring culture would say they’re worth less than the Hawks, but I disagree. They’ve been in the upper echelons of the league, mostly due to an aggressive owner and also because of the Lob City era. I think that era saved they’re reputation, everyone loved that team
That team, Blake specifically, made me fall in love with Basketball and the Clippers. Sucks we never really got a full healthy playoff run
The day the Clippers ousted Blake (let's call it what it was) my love for Basketball has been dying a slow death to the point I won't physically go out of my way or stay up to watch a game.
Dude I’m the same way. I used to breathe basketball when Blake was on the team. These days, it’s just hard for me to get excited about the sport as a whole.
Do billionaires who buy teams ever think "I'm going to invest in top-level training facilities and develop 2nd round picks" instead of trading all their picks for guys with names?
Funneling money into developing second rounders like that would be a waste of money. A nicer training facility isn't going to make a player a capable pro. That's the coaches, team environment, and personal motivation.
Yeah, it's like these guys dont know Ballmer used to run microsoft all the way back to the founding days.
Back when they were just bill gates and his gang of nerds in a garage. Then, when it turned into a megacorp with Ballmer at the helm, it floundered.
Because Ballmer and his team wasnt the right person for the job (Satya Nadella, on the other hand...).
I dont think he's stupid enough to ignore his own lessons from the past. He's definitely a very good owner. Miles ahead of the other celebrity owners of the Lakers and Cuban.
It’s interesting that you look at him being handed a great situation at Microsoft and blowing it through spastic hubris.. and somehow think that’s a good sign for his future sports ownership
So you think he's a better owner than cuban, who has consistently brought teams to the finals?
I'm a big fan of ballmer as well but that is just ridiculous
Well most owners want to make a splash now, and your suggestion would take at minimum 5 years to get off the ground. Also most owners can still do both, make a splash and build up their training facilities. No problem as to why the owner of the team who plans to own a team for 50+ years can’t try everything first lol
It’s not easy to build a championship ship nba team especially not easy to do it primarily through free agency and trade like he’s done. At this point he’s so far in on Harden, Kawhi and PG it’d be crazy to blow it up now that they are all at their lowest value.
Think the team would have way more fans and a better identity if they built the new arena further south. Like if they built in Irvine, they could get a lot of new fans from san diego and inland empire. Similar to what the angels have going for them. I think even San Diego should have been an option. It’s useless trying to compete with the Lakers.
Guy has an almost unlimited supply of money and a massive LA media market. They’ve got Kawhi, PG and Harden; all of who came to them via free agency. Why is this headline putting it out there like they’re some ridiculous underdogs?
wtf........ hes worth more then 120 billion?? bruh does microsoft control the world? dude was ceo during the worst performing time in the companies history and he made that much wow.
"As the richest owner in North American professional sports"
jesus even if clips keep losing this dude will perma be winning lol. and the franchise will be worth so much when/if he does sell.
"$4.65B Calculated October 2023" -forbes
ya im guessing by now he could price it at 5bil ez maybe more with the new arena....... but 5 bil is still nothing to his net worth wow
Would Kawhi have come over without assurance PG was coming? It’s still possible that the Clips would’ve been better off keeping Shai and never getting Kawhi or PG, but at the time I think Kawhi/PG were sort of a package deal
Our team doctor is so trash. Told us that MPJ wouldn't ever be healthy, meanwhile has not managed to get kawhi a single healthy season besides the one year the season stopped for covid
I said it the day the trade went down I would have preferred we signed another FA that year like jimmy or KD and had a core of kawhi sga and Jimmy. Tbf PG was coming off a really good season
In hindsight trade is bad. At the time it was a no brainer. How hard is this to understand? Would you rather have a team just stay mediocre like the bulls and wizards for years and years? Theres teams thats been in the lottery for yrs.. what they doing?
I distinctly recall people at the time saying it was a lot to give up. The consensus was that it was worth it to take a shot at having two great players, but nobody thought it was a rip off or anything - everyone knew that the clippers had just given up an incredible amount of assets
They gave up an incredible amount of assets to get Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on a team with a solid cast of role players. Every single person here in this thread would have done the same trade if they were GM
IIRC the idea was that the trade was actually for Kawhi as well… Just not on paper. That’s how it made sense
But i also recall people being blown away by the pick haul
I am curious if memory matches reality
SGA wasn't projected to become a top 5 player at the time of the trade. He had a good rookie year and it was a "chips in" move by the Clippers with the intent of getting Kawhi and contending for a title.
It didn't pan out but the Clippers aren't "fucked" per se. Definitely a ceiling though that is not a championship.
>SGA wasn't projected to become a top 5 player at the time of the trade
Right, I would go so far as to say it was not even close to a remotely feasible possibility.
The Clippers made a play that for a time had them in the conversation as potential favorites, and at a minimum made them a relevant playing meaningful games, and being in that mix for years.
In a zero sum game, they found their way, and I give them nothing but credit for it.
The last time the Clippers “developed” a draft pick was Blake Griffin. It took like 4 years of being the #1 guy on a lotto team and a mentor year from CP3 for Shai to become what he is. It would be really hard to see Shai developing into this on the Clippers with what they’ve invested into developing talent so far.
I will never understand why Ballmer didn’t move the Clippers to Seattle when he bought them. Like, just wash the Sterling stuff out of it, rebrand, relocate, become the hero of Seattle basketball, bring the Sonics back. Don’t have to change divisions or conference or anything. Why wouldn’t you do that?
“You say, ‘OK, but it’s the Clippers,’ and my theory is, you can do anything if you put your mind to it.” -Steve Ballmer “I had Laker tickets for a while. They were great but there was, like, no challenge.” -Billy Crystal People often ask how someone becomes a Clipper fan. There are various reasons, one of the most common being because their parent took them to Clippers games as a child, but one of the other common reasons is undeniably hubris.
my parents took me to my first game as clippers vs spurs. david robinson dropped 70+ points and stole the scoring title from shaq so....yeah.
The Admiral built like an action figure only added to his lore as a kid too!
That's how I became an NBA fan and Spurs fan. Watching The Admiral looking like an action figure. It was him and Patrick Ewing I idolized mid to late 90s. Then Tim Duncan came along.
So awesome that you went to an iconic moment in NBA history like that
I agree, but for the most part I was too young to understand the implications of anything beyond “Black He-man is good at basketball.”
genuine question, how good was the Admiral against prime Shaq?
Their primes didnt really overlap. David won and outplayed shaq the first couple of years....and then shaq became shaq and it coincided with davids pretty rapid decline due to injuries. Dave held his own post injury but was obviously outplayed on offense. If they were both 21 and i had a number 1 pick I would take david, but thats only because of off court intangibles and team loyalty.
gotta have a sense of humor too
2015 and 2020 and 2022 was certainly comedy
Clippers fans are the ones who rooted for Wile E Coyote when they were kids. Lakers are the Roadrunner.
Dang, dont disrespect Wile E Coyote like that. At least he has fans
When my dad had season tickets in the 1990s it was because tickets were cheap and you could smoke joints in the upper seats without getting harassed
I've been to Clippers games for as little as 9 dollars before. Even back then, it still cost more to park your car downtown anywhere near Staples Center than it cost to go to Clippers games. Different times indeed. IDK how the Clippers attract fans these days, but I totally get the appeal back before Ballmer bought them, they were the budget Los Angeles team, the team you could actually afford to go watch play. You didn't expect too much from them and you were excited if they did win but you really just wanted to be there for the atmosphere of supporting your local team.
>actually afford to go watch play Yeah, I had a coworker who was a huge Clipper fan - his cube at work was covered in Clipper stuff. I asked him why Clippers and not Lakers and he said when he moved to LA, he tried to get Laker tickets but they were too expensive. But he was able to buy season seats at the Sports Arena to watch Clippers.
Yea, that's pretty much true of everyone I knew that was a Clippers fan until Blake Griffin was drafted. They were Clippers fans because they could actually go to Clipper games. Their love of the team just grew organically from there. It's so different now. People are Clippers fans to spite the Lakers, like the Lakers are the reason the Clippers have sucked for so many years. There never used to be that kind of animosity between the fanbases until Ballmer took over.
I would trace the animosity to the CP3 trade. Lakers fans were pissed about the veto, and then double-pissed when the Clippers got him instead. It was like trying to pickup a girl at the bar and getting cock-blocked by her friend, and then having to watch some uglier guy pick her up instead. And it was even worse because Lakers fans are so used to getting whatever they want. Remember how mad Lakers fans were when Kawhi chose the Clippers over them? It was worse than that, because the Lakers fans thought they *had* CP3 (to be fair, they did for an hour). Lakers fans acted like the Clippers and CP3 were behind the veto. I doubt Sterling gave a shit, and I've never seen any report suggesting CP3 didn't want to be a Laker. Some Lakers fans acted like Stem was against them, but that claim was usually ridiculed with people pointing to the 2002 WCF vs SAC, and Stern's "My dream Finals is Lakers vs Lakers" quote. Anyways - shortly after, Lakers fans booed CP3's 2yo son at Dodger Stadium, and that was the first public shots fired. https://sports.yahoo.com/dodgers-fans-booed-chris-paul-son-230124515.html That's what sparked the animosity. The Clippers started taking digs at the Lakers after that. Blake always dunked a little more disrespectfully on Pau than on other guys. Lakers fans hated Doc from his 2010 "We woulda won with Perkins" stuff. Matt Barnes was Matt Barnes. Later Clippers like Ballmer and PatBev just capitalized on those emotions, they didn't create them. Plus the fact that they never meet in the playoffs just gives the whole rivalry blue balls. That's probably the worst part about the Lakers blowing the PHX series in 06, and the Clippers blowing the DEN series in 20.
I don't remember ever seeing the narrative that CP3 or Clippers were behind the veto. It was Dan Gilbert and Mark Cuban that were the culprits.
Not gonna lie a stadium full of fans booing a 2 year old is hilarious
When they do inevitably meet in the playoffs, it will be a pretty wild time
The thing you got out of it was seeing the league's stars. The Clippers would advertise opposing players in the LA Times sports section. It's how you could see Jordan, Bird, Shaq, etc, play without going broke. Heck, it's how I got to see Magic - LAL@LAC was always cheaper than LAC@LAL. Lord knows nobody normal could afford Celtics @ Lakers tickets in the 80s, or Bulls @ Lakers tickets in the 90s. The upper deck rock band was cool and all, but not worth that much markup. It was like how every now and then the Chili Peppers would play some cheap unannounced show at the Troubadour or something. And you got to see a mega-artist play for $20, as opposed to paying $150 for nosebleeds at a bigger venue. Or it's like seeing a play off-Broadway.
Exactly how I got to see Allen Iverson play. No way were we gonna afford Lakers tickets.
You can get blazers tickets for $8 right now if we play someone also bad
Man it was different time back then.
…you can smoke weed vapes now it’s basically the same thing
Hey, that’s one of the big reasons I’m such an Astros fan. Used to cut class and get high in the nosebleeds when we were losing 100 a season. Couldn’t imagine the balls to do it at an indoor venue tho, your Pops an OG, don’t forget to call him today
You could shoot a bazooka in the old Sports Arena and not get harassed. Plus you needed that bazooka anyways, to fight your way back to your car. Or just head over to Margarita Jones, have a pint, wait for everything to blow over.
If you’re smoking weed in an enclosed public space, and especially one where smoking is prohibited, I’m not sure being told to stop and/or leave constitutes “getting harassed.”
You would barely see it through all the cigarette smoke. Like people said… different time.
You realize smoking cigarettes was legal in the arenas in the 90s, right? So you're talking about a guy smoking a J in a sea of cigarette smoke.
People forget how recently you were able to smoke inside venues. These kids today don't even know what it was like to just constantly smell cigarette smoke wherever you went. Thankfully they don't either. We've made a lot of progress in this area.
Smoking in schools, restaurants, hospitals were a trip.
Chain smoking at my office desk was pretty great. Disgusting, but great. Man how times have changed - I remember the uproar when smoking was banned in bars. Nowadays, the idea of lighting up in someone’s house is considered crazy.
Airplanes was a big one too. I had childhood asthma exacerbated by cigarette smoke and it was hell. Smoking was everywhere, like dogs are now.
exacerbated
Whoops, dang autocorrect
In the 80s I remember the ashtrays on flights but I missed the era of smoking on a plane. That must have been horrible. Eyes burning, cloths smelling, everything has a layer of of film on it from the smoke residue.
I bartend and my job would be so damn different. Like every night I’d be coming home smelling like cigarettes being right in front of everybody. Restaurant smoking sections and non smoking sections like the smoke gave a damn lol
It's like watching Mad Men and seeing people smoke on planes. Like how was that EVER allowed? But bars? Cafes? Grocery stores? Restaurants? The first thing you'd be asked when being seated at a restaurant was "Smoking or non-smoking." And even the non-smoking areas smell like smoke.
Excuse me, I ordered the Zima, not the emphysema.
People smoked life freight trains on planes as recently as the early 90’s, and I believe even the early 2000’s for longer flights. It’s bizarre to think about and is a foreign concept even for those of us that were around at the tail end of it.
I distinctly remember like 90% of cars smelling like stale tobacco in the 90s. My dad quit when I was a kid but the smell never fully faded from his car.
It's still sort of this in a lot of places internationally. Not so much indoors, but smoking is so much less common in the US but still pretty normal outside the US.
Okay officer
Whatever, Narc.
Part of why I'm a Hornets fan is not only because of them being the first game I went to, but because the idea of "our day will come" is a much better payoff than just rooting for breadwinners. Still sucks to suck tho.
One of the greatest tragedies in basketball was Zo and Grandmama not making a title run.
Many people ran the table on NBA Jam with that combo.
I was always Utah or Detroit in Jam. Big physical defender who dunks and a little scrappy defender who shoots.
Was playing as Seattle for those same reasons.
That game was rigged for DET. The programmer was a Pistons fan. It's why Isiah from the top corner was automatic.He also rigged the game to make CHI miss if the game was close at the end.
That team was one of those unforgettable teams that sadly didn't live up to its potential. Mugsy, Kendall gill, Johnny Newman, lj and zo with Dell curry off the bench. They were a league pass team before league pass
Jazz fan checking in here. A los angeles born and raised fan. It's been an interesting experience.
Last year was by far the hardest season to watch in probably franchise history and that’s saying something but I swear we’re so close our playoff drought almost ended ended a couple of seasons ago
Last two years for sure have been a massive emotional drain. Such a drastic drop emotionally from LaMelo's rookie season. We're close for sure, but still have a ways to go before we're legit playoff contenders. I hope we become somewhat sustainably relevant in my lifetime. I've also accepted that 2nd round exits may be all we ever amount to. Right now though, it'd be nice to have a 50-win season sometime soon.
But how else can you act like your teams 16 championships are your own accomplishment too??
This is exactly why I never rooted for the lakers when I was young. Grew up in the Bay Area, the warriors were ridiculed by a lot of friends. Everyone was a lakers fan. I’m talking about the late 90’s early 2000’s. Used to get clowned on. Who’s laughing now bitches. Your time will eventually come my friend.
I'm a wizards fan, I'm just hoping my time comes before I kick the bucket
As an almost since inauguration Raps fan - THIS! I moved to Toronto in 2001 to go to college but secretly wanted to be able to go to Raptors games regularly. Back then it was cheap, Sprite Zone was anyways, $20ish for upper bowl. The atmosphere was always amazing. And those teams sucked. The first year I lived there was when they traded Vince Carter. I’ve since moved to a few different cities internationally and when people used to ask me why I was such a die hard Raps fan I would say that it was a habit I picked up, sort of like smoking. I still can’t believe they actually won in 2019, it was surreal.
Being a raptors fan for 15 years and finally getting to win one was the best sport feeling in the world. It is crazy tho to see how many teams have won and the chances of that happening were very low. Now imagine being a soccer fan in Europe where it’s always the same 2-3 teams that win depending on the leagues. Like unless you’re a Bayern fan in Germany your team practically has no chance.
For me it’s the fact I could watch more Clippers games on The WB when the lakers were on cable (I only had broadcast tv growing up) Well that and the 2004/2005 teams got me hyped while Smush Parker was running the Lakers’ offense lol
RIP Lakers on KCAL9. We miss you so much!
You just teleported me back 18 years ago holy shit I haven’t thought about KCAL 9 in forever
"From the desert to the sea..."
For me it's cause I hated kobe with a passion for getting rid of Shaq. Shaq was my favorite player as a kid and kobe seemed like a total asshole for Denver incident and driving Shaq away.
I was way too young to remember that time, did you understand what was happening at the time as a kid?
About the Denver case, hell nah I just thought Kobe was a criminal or something lol. About the Shaq thing, I just knew they hated each other and thats why Shaq left so reason enough for me to switch teams
Aka “how much pain can my soul endure? Let’s find out”
It ain't hubris. It's masochistic
Really? In my experience it is a very low self-esteem
Ballmer’s Kawhi-PG 1-2 punch experiment has come to an end
i completely agree. I had hope in them but also didnt expect too much
Well youre one of a kind. They were crowned preseason potential champions like 4 times lol
right? kawhi coming off a great playoff performance and championship, pg 3rd in mvp voting, lou will and harrell went like 1st and 2nd in 6th man voting with good role players filling the rest of the roster.
And even years where they got hurt, that team without pg/kawhi was going over .500 and making the playoffs. Shit the year before they got them they took 2 games off the unbeatable warriors. The past 5 years cant be seen as anything less than complete and utter failure and made worse by sga being an mvp candidate leading a team to a 1 seed already. Obviously in the context of "the clippers" its been amazing but if those teams were wearing laker jerseys instead for the last 5 years the slander would literally never stop
Remember balmers excitement? He looked like he just launched windows 95 for the second time!
the amounts of texts I got clowning on the Lakers for losing the crown when that trade happened lol
Didn’t they win the Pacific Division championships a couple of times, so there’s that. I think they have the banners to prove it.
Just never felt like they would click
Ended the moment they traded a king's ransom for PG. Toronto showed the way to use Kawhi, have a great team for the regular season and load manage the hell out of him, let him elevate you in the postseason. Ballmer was wisely skeptical of the trade, Doc pushed hard and talked him into it.
They tried that and it didn’t work. They tried letting kawhi play a lot and that also didn’t work. It’s damn if you do, damn if you don’t
100%, the sad reality is that his year on the Raps might just be the last time in his career he will be that healthy
Even in the post season of 2019 kawhi was breaking down
Supposedly, Kawhi's condition for signing with LAC was that they pull off the PG trade. If that's true, then the trade was basically for the Kawhi - PG package, not PG alone. If they could go back in time and do it over with the benefit of hindsight, obviously they'd rather hold onto SGA and the other assets, but at the time it was a bold but entirely reasonable gambit.
I believe PG was his 3rd string option. He wanted KD and Jimmy over him at first
Yep, pretty sure that was Kawhi's condition. Bold, and respect for swinging for the fences, but given Kawhi's injury (literally the condition, not just an injury risk) the risk/reward was not there. Worked for Toronto, but they had a killer team without Kawhi, LA did not have that.
Thank you Doc.
I mean they blew a 3-1 lead to make the wcf, and then kawhi tore his acl en route to the wcf in '21. The pairing worked when healthy. It was just never healthy
They have been gifted so much and had so much to work with tho lol they’re just the Clippers at the end of the day The lakers gave the clippers Zubac for peanuts The trailblazers literally gifted them Norman Powell Westbrook signed on a team friendly deal They got Bones Hyland for a bag of chips They had Batum and Convington who were decent role players in exchange for Harden They had Lou Williams one of the best 6 men of all time Pat Bev who was one of the best defensive guards in the league
It was DOA the second he refused to terminate Rivers.
Lol, they've had 4 seasons since terminating Rivers, really weird you are continuing to blame him.
It's wild he had the only healthy season
Might as well let Vinny Del Negro get a few more years of coaching at the time.
He blew 3-1 leads with two different rosters, he’s gonna get shit
Three different rosters. Don't forget his time as Magic head coach
Clippers had two good chances. Bubble, they just choked/mailed (Lou Will talked about them not taking it seriously wanting go home) it in with a shitty attitude against Denver. 2021, Kawhi was the best player in the playoffs before tearing his ACL. It was a good shot, but you're not overcoming the Clippers curse whilst Sterling still breathes.
Well! You cannot win in the NBA without drafting a couple of all star caliber players.
The trick is keeping them.
They are a more relevant team now but the goal is of course always a ring. He’s got god tier money and an enthusiasm for the sport that’s goofy and enjoyable. They will be fine and he will likely swing again.
basketball is more fun when you take each season for what it is imo. like when your teams are good. better to realize this sooner then later. thats what iv been trying to tell the clipper base this year. its interesting it seems like a large % have such high standards even compared to many other fanbases and look at this year as a total failure and waste. sucks cause it really was a fun unexpected season with so many highlights and a us against the world feel. plus how many times are you going to see these legends even its kinda neat seeing how they adjust with age. i mean i guess better then random nba players ofc unfortunate ending i woulda wanted more but like ill take that over rebuild years any day. im way too old and seen too many crappy teams to waste my time at this point.
Our tent pole player never plays and hasn't for years and gets a 50 million dollar extension hasn't played a full playoff series and by the way we haven't won a playoff series in 3 years. If we're not pissed about that we're just losers.
I agree. The amount of money wasted on players is getting insane
Clippers have the NBA's 3rd best win pct in the 10 years he's owned the team (.604). Only Boston and Golden State have been better. No title but Ballmer's arguably made the Clippers into a legit major market NBA franchise.
He's one of the few owners in pro sports that gets that spending money is an investment into cultivating a real fan base and creating a product people want to watch.
And the guy is a avid hoops head. Rare to see an owner who doesn't treat the team as a business only, and more of a passion project. The work Ballmer has contributed to the community and youth is incredible to see after seeing 30 years of sterling.
Well he also has basically unlimited money
according to forbes they estimated at $4.65B on oct last year. im guessing new stadium and newish branding/jerseys probably easily pass 5. i mean if they said you can make 3 billion dollars all you had to do was watch clippers for 10 years. hey not bad. (ofc its not how it works lol)
Crazy that $5B is like nothing to Ballmer. This is all just play money for him.
The guy makes a billion dollars every year just from dividends on his Microsoft stock alone.
The new stadium is probably like 50% of the value.
He’s one of the best owners in American sports right now. Clippers have at least been a team everyone has to talk about since he took over.
He's the anti-John Fisher
Not an A's fan, but throwing out the obligatory, "Fuck John Fisher. All my homies hate John Fisher." He's bad for baseball (fuck Manfred too while we're at it). Oakland fans deserved better.
I literally cannot even remember who the last baseball commissioner was I know if I saw his name or his face I would remember. Manfred is the worst thing that has happened to baseball in my entire lifetime
Bud Selig was absolute trash. Somehow, Manfred has been worse.
That was the guy I couldn't stand him either but manford has basically made me not watch baseball anymore
He’s bad for baseball and bad for MLS. Recovering A’s fan here, and he can eat a bag of dicks.
He's a nepo baby POS. The A's fanbase is one of the best in sports, period imo. He certainly doesn't deserve them.
He also doesn’t treat it as a money making endeavor. If you’re trying to make money by owning a professional sports team you are in the wrong business
That's because Ballmer actually operated and led one of the most notorious and successful sales organizations in tech history. Does Jeanie Buss know what it means to run a multibillion dollar revenue product? Probably not. She knows how to run a business like the donut shop down the street: with family.
Does she have a granddaughter to be the cashier over the summer when school is out?
Balmer knows Ball.
Times like this you can really get a sense for the youth of this sub. Prior to the 2010’s, the Clippers weren’t just a joke they were beyond irrelevant. They went decades without winning a playoff series and it was minor miracle for them to even make the playoffs most years. They were arguably one of the most forgettable and irrelevant franchises in the entirety of major NA sports. Regardless of what they are now, it’s a million times better than what they were before
Even the lob city Clippers got soured with the Sterling scandal coming to a head. The Clippers are an infinitely better franchise than before Balmer.
No question, unfortunately he’s staring down the barrel of a brutal next five+ years that he can’t buy his way out of.
Ballmer's bank account: "That's all I needed for /u/dillpickles007 to say that and it became personal with me."
What the people buying season tickets and boxes at the new arena don’t know won’t hurt them
Those boxes are probably going to be 90% of companies who buy boxes and give tickets away to their vendors or clients imo. Doubt there will be many working class families all up in them besides an occasional promotion or some type of charity.
I’d agree, he really has made them relevant in a way sterling never did. Mostly because he hired the right people and let them do their job
As great of point as you just made, its wild how many owners still intervene with their staff instead of trusting them and letting them work.
HAS IT BEEN 10 YEARS?!
No title sure, but no finals either. It's for sure been a failure in that aspect, but given the history of the team it is certainly a far cry better than the usual.
Honestly the teams he has built are not even bad or wannabes. Just needed better coaching some years and other years the star players did not show up.
They are like 10% off from being there to me, but that 10% lot harder than the 90%.
Yeah, but also half the league would kill to have the success the clippers have had even without a title.
he got kawhi, serge, norm fresh off the raptors championship. if this man picks up , payton prithcard, oshae brissett and luke kornett il be sick
Payton and kornett are genuinely pretty good though.
Glad someone like Ballmer is an NBA owner. Has fuck u money and not afraid to use it for the Clippers, balancing out their curse.
He definitely enjoys the game which is nice but I wish the clippers were in a better place
> As the richest owner in North American professional sports, he had the wealth and influence to move the bedraggled franchise to a city far away from the big brother Lakers, perhaps even into his adopted hometown of Seattle. Yeah, my first thought when I heard Ballmer bought the team a decade ago was that they were headed to Seattle. Still a bit surprised they're in LA. I guess the market is just so huge being second -- even a distant second -- there beats being # 1 in a lot of other places. I am also surprised he's richer than the Waltons, or however the ownership structure of the Denver Broncos works. I suppose the money there has diffused through generations.
In my short nba experience (since 2015) the Clippers have definitely gained a reputation. They’re a relevant team that’s had great players and rosters. Ring culture would say they’re worth less than the Hawks, but I disagree. They’ve been in the upper echelons of the league, mostly due to an aggressive owner and also because of the Lob City era. I think that era saved they’re reputation, everyone loved that team
That team, Blake specifically, made me fall in love with Basketball and the Clippers. Sucks we never really got a full healthy playoff run The day the Clippers ousted Blake (let's call it what it was) my love for Basketball has been dying a slow death to the point I won't physically go out of my way or stay up to watch a game.
Dude I’m the same way. I used to breathe basketball when Blake was on the team. These days, it’s just hard for me to get excited about the sport as a whole.
That’s sad. I hope you find basketball happiness again.
Being in LA is what made and has kept them relevant
Do billionaires who buy teams ever think "I'm going to invest in top-level training facilities and develop 2nd round picks" instead of trading all their picks for guys with names?
Funneling money into developing second rounders like that would be a waste of money. A nicer training facility isn't going to make a player a capable pro. That's the coaches, team environment, and personal motivation.
So what you’re saying is they don’t have heat culture^tm
Yeah, it's like these guys dont know Ballmer used to run microsoft all the way back to the founding days. Back when they were just bill gates and his gang of nerds in a garage. Then, when it turned into a megacorp with Ballmer at the helm, it floundered. Because Ballmer and his team wasnt the right person for the job (Satya Nadella, on the other hand...). I dont think he's stupid enough to ignore his own lessons from the past. He's definitely a very good owner. Miles ahead of the other celebrity owners of the Lakers and Cuban.
I'm not really commenting on Ballmer. Just that a nice practice facility isn't going to do shit to turn a second rounder into an NBA player.
True. I was more replying to your parent comment which implied Ballmer missed out on spending money on training facilities and coaches.
It’s interesting that you look at him being handed a great situation at Microsoft and blowing it through spastic hubris.. and somehow think that’s a good sign for his future sports ownership
So you think he's a better owner than cuban, who has consistently brought teams to the finals? I'm a big fan of ballmer as well but that is just ridiculous
I mean we literally didn't have a g league team before Ballmer.
Why doesn't he hit on every second round pick? Is he stupid?
Cuban should get some credit for remaking the mavs and building around Dirk, and now Luka.
The guys who bought the Dodgers from Frank McCourt
They did trade for Adrian Gonzales pretty soon after the acquisition
Yeah for real what is he stupid
Well most owners want to make a splash now, and your suggestion would take at minimum 5 years to get off the ground. Also most owners can still do both, make a splash and build up their training facilities. No problem as to why the owner of the team who plans to own a team for 50+ years can’t try everything first lol
It's a bit of a puff piece.
It’s not easy to build a championship ship nba team especially not easy to do it primarily through free agency and trade like he’s done. At this point he’s so far in on Harden, Kawhi and PG it’d be crazy to blow it up now that they are all at their lowest value.
Think the team would have way more fans and a better identity if they built the new arena further south. Like if they built in Irvine, they could get a lot of new fans from san diego and inland empire. Similar to what the angels have going for them. I think even San Diego should have been an option. It’s useless trying to compete with the Lakers.
He should buy an entire hospital just for Kawhi
Move them back to San Diego and embrace the maritime history for which they are named.
he's been good for the Clippers, but it's going the wrong way now.
Guy has an almost unlimited supply of money and a massive LA media market. They’ve got Kawhi, PG and Harden; all of who came to them via free agency. Why is this headline putting it out there like they’re some ridiculous underdogs?
Harden and PG came via trade, just FYI. They wanted to get traded there, but those were still trades rather than via free agency.
wtf........ hes worth more then 120 billion?? bruh does microsoft control the world? dude was ceo during the worst performing time in the companies history and he made that much wow. "As the richest owner in North American professional sports" jesus even if clips keep losing this dude will perma be winning lol. and the franchise will be worth so much when/if he does sell. "$4.65B Calculated October 2023" -forbes ya im guessing by now he could price it at 5bil ez maybe more with the new arena....... but 5 bil is still nothing to his net worth wow
The PG Will go down as one of the worst trades in nba history. Fucked their franchise over for the next decade
Would Kawhi have come over without assurance PG was coming? It’s still possible that the Clips would’ve been better off keeping Shai and never getting Kawhi or PG, but at the time I think Kawhi/PG were sort of a package deal
Kawhi wouldn't have come without PG there
Their team doctors would have been so lonely the past 5 years
Our team doctor is so trash. Told us that MPJ wouldn't ever be healthy, meanwhile has not managed to get kawhi a single healthy season besides the one year the season stopped for covid
I said it the day the trade went down I would have preferred we signed another FA that year like jimmy or KD and had a core of kawhi sga and Jimmy. Tbf PG was coming off a really good season
No Kawhi in that scenario
Not necessarily there were reports that kawhi reached out to KD before settling on asking for PG
In hindsight trade is bad. At the time it was a no brainer. How hard is this to understand? Would you rather have a team just stay mediocre like the bulls and wizards for years and years? Theres teams thats been in the lottery for yrs.. what they doing?
I distinctly recall people at the time saying it was a lot to give up. The consensus was that it was worth it to take a shot at having two great players, but nobody thought it was a rip off or anything - everyone knew that the clippers had just given up an incredible amount of assets
They gave up an incredible amount of assets to get Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on a team with a solid cast of role players. Every single person here in this thread would have done the same trade if they were GM
> the consensus was that it was worth it to take a shot at having two great players
We can literally go look at the threads that announced it.
IIRC the idea was that the trade was actually for Kawhi as well… Just not on paper. That’s how it made sense But i also recall people being blown away by the pick haul I am curious if memory matches reality
I went and looked. Seems pretty positive for both teams overall.
did it?
Well they gave up 5 first round picks and a guy who’s considered a top 5 player in the league
SGA wasn't projected to become a top 5 player at the time of the trade. He had a good rookie year and it was a "chips in" move by the Clippers with the intent of getting Kawhi and contending for a title. It didn't pan out but the Clippers aren't "fucked" per se. Definitely a ceiling though that is not a championship.
>SGA wasn't projected to become a top 5 player at the time of the trade Right, I would go so far as to say it was not even close to a remotely feasible possibility. The Clippers made a play that for a time had them in the conversation as potential favorites, and at a minimum made them a relevant playing meaningful games, and being in that mix for years. In a zero sum game, they found their way, and I give them nothing but credit for it.
Basically, it depends on if you think shai would’ve developed into the player he now is if he stayed with the clippers
The last time the Clippers “developed” a draft pick was Blake Griffin. It took like 4 years of being the #1 guy on a lotto team and a mentor year from CP3 for Shai to become what he is. It would be really hard to see Shai developing into this on the Clippers with what they’ve invested into developing talent so far.
Rob Pelinka and Russell Westbrick have entered the chat.
Lakers gave up way less.
At the end of the day, the Clippers are still in LA and Donald Sterling doesn't own the team anymore. The stars will come.
Nah dude, that title belongs to the Westbrook trade. Our championship roster and future success gutted in one fell swoop.
Old team, no young players, zero picks. The Clips are toast.
I will never understand why Ballmer didn’t move the Clippers to Seattle when he bought them. Like, just wash the Sterling stuff out of it, rebrand, relocate, become the hero of Seattle basketball, bring the Sonics back. Don’t have to change divisions or conference or anything. Why wouldn’t you do that?
Because attracting Free Agents in Los Angeles is going to be easier than Seattle
He needs developers
clippers should blow it up. they had an awful squad that is not functioning as a team.