2015-2024

2024-Present

Player info awards draft picks Expansion draft Retired Numbers Player Numbers

Team info Arena History Coaches and records Hall-of-fame Playoffs Season Records

Stats Scoring

Quick facts:

Founded:                    1971   
Arena:                      Intuit Dome
Division Championships:     3 (2013, 2014, 2024)
NBA Titles:                 none
Playoffs:                   13
Best Season:                57-25 (2013-14)
Worst Season:               12-70 (1986-87)

Many Clipper style war ships were moored in San Diego during the 19th century and many were used during the California gold rush to haul gold back to the east coast of the United States via a long trip around South America. When the Braves relocated to San Diego in 1979 they chose the name Clippers because of this history.

Donald Sterling Incident
In April 2014 private recordings on Clippers owner Donald Sterling were made public, the recordings had some racist comments in them. The backlash forced Sterling to sell the Clippers after 33 years of ownership and banned him from the NBA for life.

There was a lot of controversy about the sale as some felt that the NBA had acted too harshly against Sterling for one incident that was private. But at the same time, the NBA's action were likely done because of a long history of Sterling's racist and sexist antics as well as his franchise being the butt of many jokes about terrible sports franchises.

Bad News Marvin Barnes:
Fans today think that the players today are out of control and that their predecessors were perfect gentleman. While it is true there are more NBA player arrests today, but there are also more Americans in general getting arrested. None of today's players have anything on Marvin Barnes.

Stories of Barnes seem like something like Charlie Sheen's character in Two and a Half Men would do. Barnes kept loaded guns in his lookers, partied with hookers and did lines of cocaine at half-time. Things today that would get a player expelled from the NBA for good.

Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan are the new face of the Clippers and are having the best success in franchise history.

One game away:
The Clippers are one of only 3 NBA franchises who have never made the conference finals; the other two being the Pelicans and Hornets. But the Clippers have been close, very close.

The Clippers have won 3 games in the conference semi-finals, three different times and failed to advance all three times. Twice they have lead 3 games to 1 and failed to advance. Only 13 times in NBA history has a team held a 3-1 advantage and lost, the Clippers make up a quarter of those.

In the 2006 playoffs the Clippers and Suns were tied at 3 games, but the Clippers failed to win game 7, losing in a blowout by 20 points. In 2015 the Clippers lead the Houston Rockets 3-1 and ended up losing the next 3 games in pretty much blowout fashion. In 2020 the Clippers lead the Nuggets 3-1, and had 15+ point leads in games 5, 6 and 7, only to lose yet again.

The Clippers are 1-8 in potential close out games to advance to the conference finals going all the way back to their Buffalo days.

The Clippers finally got over the hump in 2021 when they closed out the Utah Jazz to advance to their first conference finals in franchise history.

The Clippers have thus decided that it may be better to change their identity. In 2024 they moved out of the home they shared with the Lakers and into their own brand new arena in Inglewood. They changed their logo and their colors and now hope this rebrand will help rebrand their image and their luck.

Elton Brand was part of a Clippers resurgence in the early 2000s.

Charles Smith was a key player on the early 90s Clippers playoff teams.


Bill Walton joined the Clippers after he left Portland.

Randy Smith was one of the first stars of the Buffalo Braves.

1971-72 Braves

Two variations of the first Braves logo

Paul George twice powered the Clippers from 0-2 deficits in the 2021 NBA playoffs to reach their only Conference Finals in the teams history. No team had ever come back twice after falling behind 0-2.

The Greatest Teams To Never Win An NBA Title An often-debated topic among NBA circles is "Who is the greatest franchise in NBA history?". There are lots of very good teams to chose from. Could it be the team with the most NBA titles in 17, the Boston Celtics? Could it be the team with the most consistency in winning titles; the Los Angeles Lakers? Maybe it could be the most consistent team in terms of overall winning the San Antonio Spurs? The Warriors, Bulls, and 76ers also get honorable mentions. All these teams have one thing in common - multiple NBA titles. One thing not often discussed is who is the greatest NBA franchise who has never won a title? The list is actually quite short, as only eleven NBA teams have yet to win an NBA title. Five of those teams to never win a title are recent having just joined the NBA in the past 35 years. Six of the eleven teams have yet to even make an NBA-finals. Three of the four teams from the ABA have never won an NBA title, though the Indiana Pacers and Brooklyn Nets have both gotten close Complete Article

Who is the worst franchise in NBA history? Losing is as much a part of basketball as winning, but some teams do the former a lot more often than the latter. They lose so much that they become synonymous with losing. The Clippers have been the butt of many jokes, especially during the 1990s, about their winning futility, but they seem to have turned it around once being sold off. So who is the worst team in NBA history? Obviously, the Los Angeles Clippers come to mind first and foremost. This is a franchise that all but embraced losing and made it part of their identity. But a forced ownership change has seemingly given the Clippers a new identity that has taken them away from the trash heap of the NBA. The glitz and the glam of LA also added to the Clippers mystic as the unlovable losers, and the franchise did deserve a lot of the bashing it got for sucking. The Clippers were run by a terrible owner in Donald Sterling and had a terrible general manager in Elgin Baylor, that Sterling insisted on keep even though the team was always terrible Complete Article

Military Veterans who have played in the NBA The United States Military has been a big piece of American history and American lore. Before every basketball game fans stand an honor America and the men and women who have served with the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. The song immortalizes the defense of Fort McHenry from the war of 1812. The Veterans Administration (VA) estimates that 22 million Americans have served in the military. Countless famous Americans have served in the armed forces and that includes several NBA players. During the early days of one of the NBA's precursors, the NBL, it was not uncommon for a player to leave the league to join the military. The military offered better pay and better accommodations than the league did. World War II was nearly the end of the NBL as the majority of players left to serve. The lack of players caused the first racial integration in any major sport in American history Complete Article

"Bad News" Marvin Barnes Fans today think that the problem of players getting into trouble is a modern issue and that players of the past were more gentlemanly. Most players of yesteryear and today are actually pretty nice guys, even the ones who get into trouble. Very few players have been truly terrible human beings, they just end up with problems and are unable to cope with them in a socially acceptable way so they end up acting out, or they get addicted to drugs. One such player who had their career cut short by acting out and drugs was Marvin Barnes. Barnes is one of the saddest yet most interesting stories in NBA history, yet it is one with a glimmer of hope. Barnes had the nickname “Bad News Marvin” because of his off the court issues. Some of Barnes stories are something you would expect Charlie Sheen's character from his show Two and a Half Men to do. Barnes partied with hookers, had loaded guns in his locker and did cocaine at half-time. Yet he may have been one of the most talented players of his era but he never realized his potential due to the drug use. Complete Article