Buffalo to LA: The Epic Journey and Reinvention of the Clippers

Did you know the Los Angeles Clippers didn't start in LA. They actually started in Buffalo, New York, and they were called the Buffalo Braves. Led by Hall of Famer Bob McAdoo. They lasted just eight seasons before conflicts and ownership changes them to move to San Diego, where they became the San Diego Clippers, named after the sailing ships in the harbor. They only lasted there for six years before new team ownership wanted to move them to LA where they stayed in the shadows of the Lakers ever since and struggled for success as they have never made an NBA finals. From the cold courts of Buffalo to California's bright lights, the Clippers have been on a journey and in a tale of resilience, reinvention, and relentless pursuit for a championship that has since eluded them. Join us to day as we take the journey from the Buffalo Braves too for Los Angeles Clippers today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'mington Reese, your guide as you daily learn more about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge as we dive into the Clippers and the Buffalo Braves. Now the NBA was starting to expand, especially with the ABA really on their tails, they wanted to expand to more and more places, and in nineteen seventy they added the Buffalo Braves as a new expansion team to join the league alongside the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Portland Trailblazers. And owner Paul Sneed selected the name Braves to honor the Native American heritage in western New York, and the team was set to play in Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium and share the venue in scheduling. That would come to be their downfall with the Buffalo Savers and a local college team now. The Braves had struggles the first couple seasons, finishing with just twenty two wins the first two seasons, which is nothing unusual because new teams take time to flourish. But they were able to have success in the draft, getting senator Elmore Smith and Randy Smith, who would go on to be a two time All Star, and the next year their draft forward and center Bob McAdoo, who become the franchise first Star and go on to be their very first Hall of Famer, and they would eventually hired Jack Ramsey as their head coach after a few years, who also is a Hall of Fame coach. In the nineteen seventy two to seventy three season is really when they started to break out under Jack Ramsey and Bob mackadoo, and they actually set a record that year, scoring fifty eight points the most points scored in a single quarter against the Boston Celtics of record, and despite that, they would go on to lose that game, but they would have a great season and the following year Bob McAdoo would win MBP honors, would go on to lead the league in scoring, averaging over thirty points a game and fifteen rebounds, the last player to average thirty and fifteen in a single season, and the Braves will go on to make three straight playoff appearances in nineteen seventy four, five, and seventy six, and but would never advance past the second round, which would become a franchise common occurrence, and they would still bring in young talent as Ernie Greggio would win Rookie of the Year in nineteen seventy four and Adrian Dantley who did the same in seventy five, showing the team had an eye for talent and they could get better. But there was a one problem, and it would be something that you wouldn't think of in today's date age. That issues was scheduling at their own arena. See, they shared a schedule with the Buffalo Savers, who were a new franchise and a part of the NHL, and at the time, in the seventeenth NHL was actually a bigger league than the NBA. I know, it's hard to wrap our minds around today, but at the time it was. So the Buffalo Savers got first pick and next pick actually went to the Kinisius College basketball team. Yes, have you heard of Canisius College? I bet you haven't. They are a small school, but in the nineteen fifties they were able to make the Elite Eight a couple times, and so they had a huge following in the area just based off the success they had had before, even though they were a small school who have not made the NCAA Tournament at this point since nineteen fifty seven and have only made it one more time since in nineteen ninety six. So this school at the time was a bigger deal than it is today. That's why we don't know about it, and you wouldn't think that they would block an NBA team, But the NBA was still viewed as new in the Buffalo, but Braves were still viewed as new. So the good dates for scheduling and the NBA itself had to wait for the Sabers and Canisius College to set their schedule and then the NBA could set their schedule for the Braves. It made it very difficult, and the Braves actually offered over five thousand dollars to Kinisius to allow them to have Saturday games, but they didn't want to do that because they didn't want to take away from the stranglehold they had on basketball in the city, and so owner Paul Schneider, after five years of these issues, was looking for other options, looking for new venues. They actually ended up playing multiple games in Canada because of these issues, which was good for the league. It let us know that hey, we could hold a team in Toronto, which they would do twenty years later. But it was difficult for the franchise. They didn't have the support of the team and they weren't financially viable enough to build their own stadium. It was just too much, and so the only option. Looked like they needed to find somewhere else to move, but they had actually signed a lease that made this very difficult. And the problem was in this lease they needed to average five thousand fans per game and they were too good. Being a playoff team meant you were going to get that. They were a good team, and Buffalo is a Rabbit fan base that we know now. They're huge on the Bills, they're huge on the Sabers, and now they don't have an NBA team because of this. But their lease required them to have five thousand on average in attendance for a season, and if they got below that, they could break their lease and they could move well. To do that, they had to get rid of a lot of their team. They stripped their team down to bare bones. After having three consecutive playoff appearances and having a former MVP, they stripped down the team for parts. They ended the seventy seven season with the record of thirty and fifty two and did even worse next year at twenty seven to fifty five. Because when you lose, people don't come. So at this point they averaged US five thousand. They were able to break their lease, but there was a little bit of an issue as well, where do you go? And the NBA wan and more teams on the West coast to branch out a little bit, but their owner wanted to stay on the East coast. But surprisingly, the owner of the Boston Celtics, John Brown and Ivy eleven Won, wanted to move to the West coast, but they could never move Boston there as Boston was such a stranglehold already had so many championships in Boston. You couldn't move them, but you couldn't move the Braves. And what was done was with approval of an NBA lawyer named David Stern sound familiar. He the idea from the Colts and the Chargers in the NFL, who actually did an ownership swap where the owners of the owners of the Chargers now owned the Colts and the owners of the Colts now owned the Chargers. And so he brought this proposal to them and they both agreed, and so they swapped franchises. It's not something that's done very often. It hasn't been done very often, and honestly, you wouldn't see it today. The teams are making so much money no matter where you are it's a different time. There was no TV rights and deals all that stuff were going on. But this allowed both the owners to be where they wanted to be. Now it was time for them to relocate, and they decided on San Diego as they have previously had an NBA team in the Rockets, who had moved in seventy one to Houston, and so they already had the stadium in infrastructure in place. So they moved to San Diego. And they thought the Braves may not be the best thing, so they wanted to change the name. Not every team changed their name. The Lella Lakers used to be the Minnesota Lakers where there were a lot of lakes, so it made sense. And the Utah Jazz used to be the New Orleans Jazz where jazz was created, so it makes sense. But they kept their names, but the Braves didn't, and the city voted for the Clippers in reference to the iconic sailing ships from the San Diego Bay. And by this point only three players from the Braves came over. McAdoo had been traded and it left only Randy Smith, Swin Nader and Scott Lloyd as the remaining starters for the Buffalo Bills, and so they would have to fill in the roster and they would struggle, and they would struggle to start their first season, but their new coach, Jean Shue, was known for his uptempo style and it caught on and they were able to finish out the season with a forty three and thirty nine record, just two wins short of making the playoffs, led by World be Free, averaging twenty eight point nine points that season, second most points in the NBA and being named to the All NBA Team. And no, that is not his real name. His name was Lloyd Bernard Free. Change it to world b Free, very similar to Metaworld. Piece a great name, I love it and it's just signing the times that was very seventies like. But their fast paced team made the team electric and fun to watch and was able to draw on a crowd in first season. They had built a local following and was starting to get ingrained, and in nineteen seventy nine, they actually were able to sign San Diego native and former MVP of the league Bill Walton to a then record contract for seven years, seven million dollars, hoping he could be a cornerstone of the franchise going forward, and this was a steep moment as they had to trade away some key members in draft picks to acquire him, including over three hundred thousand dollars. Now, it was excitement, except and if you know anything about Walton's NBA career, it was great at the beginning and then marred by injuries for the rest of his career, and he only played fourteen games that season and lost the entire next season, completely derailing their hopes. Even though world be Free was a great scorer and continued his scoring, they struggled. They didn't have a winning record and wouldn't reach the postseason until nineteen eighty one, and by that point the team owners were ready to sell to sell to la real estate developer Donald Sterling for twelve point five million dollars in nineteen eighty one. Now selling to Sterling and that is roughly forty four million dollars a day. Selling to Sterling may have been the downfall of the Clippers because with the previous owners of the Boston Celtics, who knew how to win championships, but Sterling didn't know, and he started to make waves right away and change the team's trajectory. He was immediately fined for publicly admitting to tanking for draft position. He violated teams rules for travel and accommodations, and he had a reputation for not paying his bills, even having hotels and bus companies refusing to use them for non payment, and he continuously tried to move them to Los Angeles, which he was initially blocked by the NBA and led him to actually suite the NBA being in a monopoly. Eventually the suit was dropped as they would allow him eventually to move to LA but it was a tough time. The finish of the nineteen eighty two season, they only won seventeen games. Walton wasn't playing, They traded away World Be Free, and they just struggled for the next years, never making the playoffs the six years they were in San Diego because they didn't have the support of the ownership. The ownership wanted them to be so bad in that city that they were forced to move to La where he lived, so he could be close to there. And he wasn't only terrible back then for this, He's just a terrible person, which will lead to troubles even more. And in nineteen eighty four, they officially moved to La abruptly, which triggered lots of lawsuits, and there was a lot of issues because the NBA really wasn't keen on having two teams in one city at the time. The NBA wasn't what it was today, and we really don't have it a whole lot. There's only LA in New York that have two teams. No other city has two teams in the NBA, and honestly, I don't know if other cities could support two teams, and having it diversified would be better, but it didn't matter. He wanted to be in LA. And again that first season in LA they struggled, only winning thirty one games, and they would always be in the shadow of the La Lakers, especially in the eighties with the Showtime Lakers really taking hold. They were always thought as the little kid of LA. Players didn't want to go there, whether they want to be part of the Lakers not the Clippers. They struggled in managing their team, and over the thirty three years that Stirling did own the franchise from nineteen eighty one to twenty fourteen, the Lakers lost over fifty games twenty two times. That's over two thirds of their time he was the owner that they would have losing seasons and they didn't have their very first winning season in Los Angeles until nineteen ninety one. Over ten years, and during his ownership, they only made the playoffs seven times and never advanced past the second round, which was an issue they had in Buffalo as well. But there was another problem. Sterling was also a terrible person. He got fined multiple times while he was the owner, but the problem really came in twenty fourteen when allegations came out of racist comments he had made throughout his career, and by that point, the NBA was fed up with Sterling and they gave him a lifetime ban from the NBA and forced him to sell. He got a consolation prize, though he was able to sell the team for two billion dollars after only paying twelve million dollars for the team when he bought them. It's sad that he ends up on top money wise, but it was a good thing that he was out of the league, as the team was bought by Steve Balmer, who really brought enthusiasm to the team and put together the Lobb City team that featured Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and really kind of put the team on the map as its own team to kind of grow and become even more excited. He officially became the clippers number one fan and had put all his effort into making the Clippers a viable team, and even after the Lobb City years were done, the team was able to reconfigure and get Kawhi Leonard and Paul George for another few years of quality play and consistently making the playoffs. Now Paul George left and they brought in James Harden and they again made the playoffs this last year and they had more success and they even reached the Western Conference Finals for their first time ever either Eastern or Western Finals. They made it for the first time in twenty twenty one, though they did lose. Was a huge jump for the franchise and now the franchise is coming out of the shadows of the Lakers. They have their very own stadium now in Englewood, just outside of La called the Into It Dome that opened in twenty twenty four, giving them their owner area separate from the Lakers that they used to share with for years and Now they are becoming their own team, and they are not looked at as a laughing stock. Now they're looked at as a competitive team. They may not be a title contender now, but they're not looking at as laughing stock as before. They have support from their owner, the support from their league, and now their estimated value has more than doubled just since Balmer bought them just over ten years ago. So they are on their way up. Although they'd never made it past the conference finals, it only takes one great year and one team to make that jump from their humble beginnings as a Buffalo Braves to now being the Los Angeles Clippers. They've come a long way and maybe, just one day they might win that championship. I want to thank you for listening to today's daily sports history. If you like this, please check out the clip cast podcast, which is the best Clippers podcast, the longest running Clippers podcast of all time, hosted by Chris and Hank with a lot of love, with a lot of lives and a lot of Clippers talk. And if you want to be part of the Clippers Nation, sound the horn and join them. 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