LACE EM UP Sports
Are the Clippers Cursed? Episode 2 (Podcast Version)
And curses, or jinxes, or hexes, or whatever? No, I don't. And I do think, I've that generation of believed in karma. I do think there's karma, in fact, ultimately. But I can't claim anybody else's karma. It's there on making whatever it is. If you do a good mitzvah, maybe you can eliminate some of those things. Do you think that Sterling's done enough mitzvahs to eliminate some of those? He's been an award-winning humanitarian many times over. Yeah, but how about all those other incidents that we have on file? This, I don't know. OK, me, too. He takes out a lot of big ads on our paper, saying he's a humanitarian and-- He pulls up business. He's well-liked. I don't know how much to take that. Let's talk about the time executives have then arrowhead pawned of Anaheim, home of the Anaheim Ducks, now known as the Honda Center, rebidding Sterling to move the team to Anaheim. In 1993, the Clippers arranged a three-year agreement with the Ogden Facility Corporation, a corporation that specialized in arena management, such as Madison Square Garden. They agreed to play a set of games at the Arrowhead Pawned. When playing home games at the LA Sports Arena, the oldest venue at the NBA at the time, the Clippers would only draw roughly over 8,000 fans a game. Games played at the Pawned, two over double, ranging in 16,000 fans per game. It made all the sense in the world. The Arrowhead Pawned was a new state-of-the-art arena that the team could utilize. Fans in Anaheim were clamoring over the NBA franchise that they'd never had. They didn't care if the team was still lousy. The Clippers wouldn't be directly compared to the Lakers any longer, and that's what mattered. They could market everything Anaheim could offer, cough cough, while Disney. In 1996, Arrowhead Pawned officials, the Ogden Group, made it known that they wanted the Clippers full-time. This could be a new beginning for the team that they desperately needed, a fresh start. The offered Sterling a 12-year, $95 million deal to move the team to Anaheim full-time. The only thing being, there was a caveat in this. Sterling would remain as team owner and CEO, and the Ogden Group would take over basketball operations, having full control of the roster and selecting a general manager of their choice. It was a win-win for both groups. Sterling would be getting paid as team owner, but didn't have to burden himself in the basketball business anymore. And the Ogden Group could redesign the team in which they felt necessary. Talks got close, and Penn almost got to paper. But at the end of it all, Sterling couldn't give up having his team in Los Angeles. Or should I say, the women in Los Angeles, using the Clippers to benefit his real estate in LA, using the team to gain status, even if it didn't make financial or basketball business sense. The Clippers would play at the LA sports arena until 1999, until they agreed last minute to join the Lakers and the NHL's Los Angeles Kings as a third-tenant party at the newly-designed Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles, owned by Phil Anschlitz. This meant the Clippers would be third on the tier and teams favorable for slots for games. It didn't help that the Lakers won three consecutive and two back-to-back NBA championships in the first ten years of the Staples Center's existence. All but declaring that the Staples Center was the Lakers home, not the other way around. Ok, so Donald Sterling didn't care about the well-being of his team. At least he wasn't a bad guy, right? Well, if you didn't know, sorry to break the news to you, but yeah, he was. Bad guy is the more diplomatic term to use. Outside of basketball, Sterling was an absolute slumlord with a long history of illegal evictions and discriminatory actions, especially to low-income families, living off government assistance. He took no responsibility in a 2009 lawsuit against him for not updating an alarm system that failed to go off during an electrical fire in one of his LA units, resulting in damage to tenants' personal belongings. In basketball, Baron Davis on the Dreamon Green podcast described Sterling as delusional and hateful. He recalled multiple times where employees were under distress because of the things Sterling would say. Sterling would bring peers of his into the Clippers' locker room at Staples Center and deliberately did so while players were in the shower. Countless testimonials where Sterling and his peers would hang out around the locker room would make players feel uncomfortable. Then, there are the all-white parties hosted by Sterling. It was an annual get-together by Sterling and his associates where they were instructed to wear all-white, except for Sterling who wore all-black at the occasions. He would invite players and parade all around them, almost as if they were his property. Blake Griffin, number one overall draft pick in 2009, was invited by Sterling to attend one of his parties and has gone on the record of stating how uncomfortable he was being grabbed by the hand being introduced by Sterling to each guest, stating how tall and muscular he was. Paul George, former Clippers sit on his podcast, stated that it felt like it was a showcase of tall black eyes. The list of despicable things go on and on, but nothing compares to what ultimately got Sterling banned for life in the NBA by Commissioner Adam Silver. Long story short, Sterling was recorded by then-girlfriend V. Stiviano in a tyrant of racial accusations at Stiviano for bringing black people to his Clippers' games. This was by far the most despicable thing an NBA owner has ever said or done and the timing of this could not have been any worse. Because it was during an intense playoff battle between the Clippers and the Golden State Warriors in the 2014 NBA playoffs. Audio leaked to TMZ and it spread like wildfire. After the audio was leaked, there was immense pressure for the Clippers' players to boycott Game 4 of the series in protest of Sterling's remarks. What made this more unfortunate, it was that the Clippers had the best season that they ever had to this point. They were led by future Hall of Famer Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Senator DeAndre Jordan and coached by Doc Rivers who led the Boston Celtics to a title in 2008. The team went in 57 and 25 earning the third seat in the Western Conference. The Clippers' players struggled with their decision but decided to play Game 4 with a warm-ups turn to inside out and not displaying the Clippers' name and logo. Major publications and figures were calling for heavy sanctions against Sterling. Lakers great Kobe Bryant commented at the time that Sterling should no longer own the Clippers. Heat forward LeBron James commented that there is no room for this type of behavior in our league and that it is unacceptable. It was very much expected that the NBA would levy heavy sanctions against Sterling and would do everything in their power to strip Sterling of his ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers. But nobody, and I mean nobody expected what Commissioner Adam Silver was about to say. Accordingly, effective immediately, I am banning Mr. Sterling for life, for life, from any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA. And there you had it, banned for life the most jaw-dropping sanction in NBA history. It was sad that it said this case in particular to finally get Sterling ousted from the NBA completely. But it needed to be done. Sterling needed to be removed from his seat as owner of the LA Clippers and out for good. After months of back and forth between Sterling, his wife and litigation, Sterling finally agreed to sell the team. On August 12, 2014, it was announced that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would buy the franchise for a total of $2 billion. The Clippers introduced him on August 19, and had the basketball world buzzing with the words he used to describe the team during his press conference. Let's take a look. "The Los Angeles," and last but not least, my favorite, which nobody can define except I'll try to define before, we're going to be hard core, hard core, hard core. We're going to get better every day, we're going to be tenacious something, knocks us down, we're going to get back up and we're going to keep coming and coming and coming and coming and coming. What did he just say? Never mind. Sure, Ballmer was a billionaire, just like Sterling was, but Ballmer and Sterling were two completely different people. As I've mentioned earlier, Sterling never cared about the best interests of the Clippers. He used the team for his own benefit, for his own public gain of status, for his own monetization of his real estate business, and he used the team for his own greed. Ballmer was the exact opposite. Ballmer loved basketball. Ballmer was so passionate about everything he did, whether he was the CEO of Microsoft or the owner of the LA Clippers, you could see it in Ballmer's blood. He wore all of his emotions on his sleeve, even if it made him look silly. He cheered the Clippers on from his seats at Staples Center, just like any other fan would. He danced, he screamed, he yelled, he cheered, and yeah, it looked silly, but that's a type of encouragement you want to see from your CEO. And oh yeah, that playoff series that we talked about, the series between the Warriors and the Clippers would go to a Game 7, and the Clippers would get their biggest win in franchise history, beating the Golden State Warriors 126-121 at Staples Center in Game 7, the biggest victory in franchise history. The Clippers may not have won the championship that year, but the new ownership of Ballmer breathed new life into the team, and they were riding the high from that. The Clippers were excited to finally move on from all the Sterling BS and play to their full potential like they knew they had, and maybe finally, just finally, be rid of the dreaded Clippers curse.