The Confounding Curse of the Los Angeles Clippers
With Chris Paul and Blake Griffin shipping off to different cities — as well as a DeAndre Jordan trade that seems to be imminent — the Clippers are on the verge of blowing it up and starting from scratch. It certainly isn’t the first time, as Jonathan Peikes delves into the story of the unluckiest franchise in NBA history
I’m a Jets fan and my team has been pretty lousy for most of the past decade. The Jets have had a few good years, like when they made back-to-back AFC Championship games in 2009 and 2010, but for the most part, being a Jets fan has been watching QB after QB make blunder after blunder. When your starter gets in a fight with a random linebacker, walking out with a broken jaw and a lost season, you know your team isn’t doing so hot.
I’ve joked around with my dad saying that the Jets are cursed, destined to never win another Super Bowl. But after researching the history of the LA Clippers, I realized I have it pretty good as a member of Gang Green.
The Clippers curse didn’t commence a couple seasons ago, not even a decade or two. It goes way, way back — two score and a year, to be exact.
In 1976, the Clippers, then known as the Buffalo Braves, were led by legendary head coach Dr. Jack Ramsay. Ramsay had led the Braves to three straight playoff appearances, gaining a reputation as one of the top-tier coaches in the league. Despite sustained successes and being held in good standing, Ramsay was fired by the Braves’ owner at the time, Paul Snyder. Assistant Tates Locke promptly replaced the doctor as head coach, and would go on to miss the playoffs for the next 15 years.
Speaking of Ramsay, he was hired almost immediately by the Portland Trail Blazers. Guess who quickly turned around and took the 1977 NBA Championship? None other than a Bill Walton-led Blazers squad.
And thus, the curse was sparked.
In October 1976, by some blind stroke of luck, the Braves were able to acquire Moses Malone from the Trail Blazers in exchange for a 1978 First Round Pick and $232,000. Malone would go on to become a Hall of Famer, but you probably don’t remember him ever dressing in a Braves uniform.
Why? Well, being the incompetent coach he was, Locke only played Moses six minutes total in two games. When Moses rightfully complained about his minutes, Coach Locke traded him to the Rockets for 1977 and 1978 first-round picks. He was fired ten weeks later.
Yet in December 1976, it was clear that the Braves had a franchise guy in Bob McAdoo, the ‘74-’75 Most Valuable Player. The team realized that the future Hall of Famer showed real promise; yet for some odd reason, the Braves traded McAdoo to the New York Knicks for Jon Gianelli and some cash.
For once, the Knicks were actually on the winning side of a trade. And for the Braves, Gianelli would go on to play one season with Buffalo where he averaged a grand total of 7 ppg. In the end, the Braves’ net profit for an MVP in McAdoo and an all-time great in Malone was next to nothing.
Oh yeah, and those two first-rounders they acquired from Houston? Well, the team traded 1977’s eighteenth pick for George Johnson. Like Gianelli, I’d be amazed if you ever heard of George Johnson, whose mediocre average of 7.6 points per game fit right in with his average-sounding name.
And, of course, Norm Nixon, a guy sitting right there for the Braves at the eighteenth pick, went on to play in two All-Star Games.
Another dismal season yielded the third overall pick for Buffalo, a key selection in a loaded draft class. But instead of drafting Marques Johnson, another multiple-time All Star, the Braves traded their pick to Milwaukee for Swen Nater and the 13th pick (Tate Armstrong).
In September of 1977, despite all of the terrible trades they had made, Buffalo still had some talent. Adrian Dantley, ‘76’s Rookie of the Year, showed a great deal of promise. The Braves celebrated his success by trading him to the Pacers for Billy Knight. Knight was actually a solid player and would go on to average around 23 ppg with the Braves. Nonetheless, he would only spend one season with them while Dantley would go on to play in six All Star Games.
The Braves were not done wheeling and dealing. They traded John Shumate and their 1979 first round pick for Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, a man with a nickname that fit like a glove. Like so many of the legends that came before him, Barnes only spent one year with Buffalo.
In August of 1978, the Braves swapped cities as well as names, settling in San Diego as the Clippers. John Brown, the man who had just bought the Braves, met with Celtics owner Irv Levin and performed a franchise swap. Levin, a California businessman, wanted to own an NBA team native to his state. However, the league wouldn’t allow him to move the historic Celtics franchise. As part of the deal, Archibald, Barnes, Knight, and two second round picks (one of which ended up being Danny Ainge) were dealt to Boston for Kevin Kunnert, Sidney Wicks, Kermit Washington, and Boston’s eighth-overall pick in 1978, Freeman Williams.
For some franchises, like the now-Baltimore Ravens, a fresh start is all they need to turn things around. For the Clippers, though, that would be anything but the case.
In October of 1978, San Diego acquired World B. Free (yep, you read that right) from Philly for a first-round pick in 1984. At the time, it looked like a fantastic move — Free averaged 28 and 30 points in the two seasons he played for the team. And yet, the curse would drag on; that pick would turn out to be none other than The Round Mound of Rebound, Charles Barkley.
1979 saw Levin ink Bill Walton to a massive six-year deal, giving up Kunnert, Washington, and next year’s first-round pick as compensation. The owner did not seem too worried about the fact that Walton had missed 203 games over his past five seasons due to repeated stress fractures in his feet. In the end, well, Walton played a grand total of 169 games for the Clips, or thirty-four percent of his six-season contract.
In 1981, Donald Sterling bought the Clippers from Levin for $12.5 million. The now-infamous owner, however, was just as bad when it came to dealing with on-court decisions as he was with…well, ya know.
The Clippers actually made a good selection, selecting Tom Chambers eighth. They doubled down with another great pick in 1982, taking eventual Rookie of the Year winner Terry Cummings second overall. Cummings and Chambers would combine to play in six All-Star Games and 228 combined playoff games. Naturally, none of these were with the Clippers, as Cummings and Chambers were both traded away by the summer of 1984.
Oh yeah, remember Norm Nixon, the talented prospect the Clips passed on earlier on? The Clippers acquired him after trading Nater and a just-drafted Byron Scott. He would give the team three good seasons before blowing out his knee during a softball game.
The Clips’ stay in San Diego would prove to be a short stint. Another losing season in ’84, and the team would be shipping up the coast to L.A.
In six years, the San Diego Clippers did not play in a single playoff game.
Before their inaugural season in Los Angeles, the Basketball Gods smiled on the team. The Clippers held the eighth and the fourteenth picks in the greatest draft class in NBA history. But, remember, it’s the Clippers; they took Lancaster Gordon ahead of Kevin Willis and Otis Thorpe, as well as Michael Cage two spots ahead of John Stockton.
In April of 1985, the Clippers did have one feel-good story. They had acquired Derek Smith off waivers; he went on to average 22 points per game during his season with the club. Smith then remembered what team he was playing for, and like the legends before him, he blew out his knee eleven games into the 1986 season.
Remember that whole Bill Walton mess? Well, the Clippers decide to finally trade Walton and his massive deal to the Celtics for Cedric Maxwell and a first round pick in 1986. Miraculously, Walton would go on to play 96 out of 100 games for Boston, and was named the Sixth Man of the Year in 1986.
Also, let’s go back to Terry Cummings. One of the pieces that the Clippers attained when they trade Cummings to the Bucks was Marques Johnson. Johnson was a really good scorer, but was viewed as a downgrade from Cummings because he was much older. Well, in the 1986 season, Johnson accidentally rammed head first into Benoit Benjamin’s midsection and ruptured a disk in his neck. He would never play again.
In April of 1986, the Clippers found themselves with a new GM, as NBA and Lakers legend Elgin Baylor took over. Baylor comes out of the gate swinging, acquiring two first round picks after trading away Cedric Maxwell and Kurt Nimphius. For once, the team looked like it was finally in capable hands…right?
Well, while Baylor is creative in to acquiring picks, his draft choices turn out to be quite poor. In the 1987 draft, he selects Reggie Williams fourth overall ahead of Scottie Pippen, Kevin Johnson, Horace Grant, and Reggie Miller. Baylor also drafts Joe Wolf at 13 and Kenny Norman at 19 instead of Mark Jackson and Reggie Lewis. The guys that Baylor drafted combined to play in zero All-Star games.
Zero.
But basketball never stops, and the show must always go on. Luckily for Baylor, Los Angeles won the draft lottery for the first time ever in June of 1988. College basketball superstar Danny Manning was the consensus number one overall pick, and the Clippers bought into the hype. The athletic forward tore his ACL twenty-six games into his rookie season.
In the 1989 NBA Draft, the Clippers held the second overall pick. Surely they couldn’t mess up back-to-back top-two picks…
…and yet they decided to go with Duke star Danny Ferry, who was on the record telling the franchise, “Please, for the love of God, don’t take me.” The Clippers picked him anyway, and because of this he threatened to play in Italy. Forcing Baylor’s hand, the franchise trades Ferry and Freeman Williams to the Cavaliers for Ron Harper and lottery-protected first round picks in 1990 and 1992. Harper starts out having a really good tenure with the Clippers, averaging 23 points per game through the first 28 games. But he’s playing for a cursed franchise, and proceeds to tear his ACL.
So far, I’ve hoped to establish one underlying constant: the Clippers have made a lot more negative moves than positive ones. Yet with some stroke of dumb luck, in 1991, the Clippers found themselves trotting out a lineup of Danny Manning, Ron Harper, Doc Rivers, and Olden Polynice. The group of players was able to mesh well together, and they would win two playoff games and push the Utah Jazz to a deciding Game 5, ultimately losing.
After the Clippers’ solid playoff run, coach Larry Brown, who was hired in the middle of the season, told Sports Illustrated, “I see myself here as long as I’m doing the job, and I would like that to be a long time.” One feud after another with Manning later, and Brown decided to resign at the end of the 1992–1993 season.
For no particular reason, the Clippers decided to blow up their talented core following Brown’s departure. Elgin Baylor traded Rivers and Polynice for a package that gave the Clippers Stanley Roberts, William Bedford, Don Mclean, and Mark Jackson. They then trade Mclean and Bedford to Washington for Jon “Hot Plate” Williams. And of course, the Clippers don’t have another winning season for fourteen years.
By the way, for those of you that have never head of the players the Clippers traded for, all you need to know is that Roberts and “Hot Plate” Williams were two of the fattest players in NBA history. You just can’t make this stuff up, folks.
In the same summer in which Brown resigned, Danny Manning rejected the Clippers’ 5 year, $27 million offer. In turn, Baylor actually makes a smart transaction for once, trading Manning to the Heat for Glen Rice and a Will Burton. But Donald Sterling would veto the trade, hoping to resign his star player. Manning agrees to a one year $3.5 million tender with the Clippers, as he intended to leave the next summer.
But Manning didn’t have to do anything. From 1993 to 1995, the Clippers proceed to break up their 1992 core by trading Manning to the Hawks for Dominique Wilkins. Dominique played one uninspiring season and decided to skip town in free agency; Ron Harper would do the same.
And just like that, the Clippers were back to Square One.
Holding lottery picks for the rest of the decade, Elgin Baylor decided to take Antonio McDyess over Rasheed Wallace, Jerry Stackhouse and Kevin Garnett in 1995 and Michael Olowokandi over Mike Bibby, Vince Carter, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, and Antawn Jamison in 1998. The team then proceed to trade McDyess to the Nuggets for what Bill Simmons called “The Chef’s Poop Salad.”
The Clippers’ former thirteenth-overall pick, Loy Vaught, would lead a bad Clippers team in both scoring and rebounding in 1996. But then, he realized that the franchise hadn’t had a devastating injury in a while, and in November 1997, he had season-ending back surgery. He never was the same player.
When the Staples Center opened in the Fall of 1999, the Lakers were given primetime slots on the weekend, while the Clippers suited up on Monday nights. If it wasn’t obvious enough already, the dynamic between the two Los Angeles franchises — one where an Association stalwart constantly looked down upon its younger, less successful brother — would not change anytime soon, even as the millennium did.
In April of 2000, Sports Illustrated finally acknowledged the curse of the Clippers, featuring a cover showcasing three fans with paper bags over their heads. The title? “The Worst Franchise in Sports History.”
Back at it in 2000 the Clippers had two first-round draft picks: #3 and #18. The club selected Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson, respectively. Both showed lots of potential, and they were bright spots on an otherwise putrid roster. But of course, the Clippers decide to break up the young dynamic duo, trading Miles to the Cavs for Andre Miller in the summer of 2002.
Miller was none too pleased to be a Clipper, and when ESPN tried to get Miller to appear in a taped “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” segment, Miller stated, “Man I ain’t doing shit for the Clippers.”
It’s safe to say, therefore, that the longtime NBA veteran knew his history.
The Clippers started the century the same way they ended it: with more losing. However, they actually do win some trades for once, acquiring Elton Brand for a pick in the 2001 Draft, two future firsts for Lorenzen Wright, and a first round pick for Corey Maggette. Yet it doesn’t help when Elgin Baylor is still in charge (!!!), selecting Chris Wilcox in 2002 ahead of Amare Stoudemire and Caron Butler.
It would get even worse the following year, as the Clippers managed to screw up one of the best drafts of all time. In 2003, sure-thing superstar players such as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Carmelo Anthony declared; the Clippers, who had finished with a 27–55 in the 2002–2003 Season, were almost guaranteed to land a top-five pick. Of course, they would end up with the sixth pick, selecting none other than Chris Kaman.
Even if they were in the top five, I bet they would’ve taken infamous draft bust Darko Milicic, so getting a one-time All-Star Kaman isn’t that bad…relatively. Oh, and I almost forgot — Lamar Odom would bolt to Miami in free agency.
Once again, the Clippers had another terrible season and got “rewarded” with a high draft pick. Missing out on consensus first-overall-pick Dwight Howard, the Clippers ended up trading down from #2 to #4 and select Shaun Livingston, a young point guard out of high school with great potential. Livingston actually played pretty well for the Clippers in his first two years. Then, in a 2007 game against the Bobcats, he suffered one of the worst injury in basketball history. Livingston dislocated his kneecap after landing awkwardly, and almost had to have his leg amputated! Luckily, he would rehab and make it back to the NBA, though the best moments of his career would be with a different team slightly further up the coast.
In the 2005 NBA draft, the Clippers had the twelfth-overall pick. Danny Granger had surprisingly fallen out of the top ten, and was right their for the Clippers to draft. But instead, they decided to take Yaroslav Koralev. I can’t even pronounce this man’s name; all you need to know is that he scored a grand total of 39 points in his NBA career.
Elgin actually made a solid trade in 2005, sending Marko Jaric to Minnesota for Sam Cassell and a first -rounder. With this trade, the Clippers find themselves tasting success for the first time in a long time. Led by Cassell and Elton Brand, the Clippers won 47 games in 2006 and made the playoffs. In the first round, they destroy the Denver Nuggets, and proceeded to go head-to-head with the Steve Nash-led Phoenix Suns. With the series tied 2–2 and up three with less than five seconds to go in Game 5, the club looked like they would break through to the conference championship. But for some reason, Mike Dunleavy decided to sub in Daniel Ewing, an undrafted rookie who hadn’t played a single minute. Matching up with Raja Bell, the Suns’ star would sink the game-tying three ball, and Phoenix won the game in double overtime, along with the series in seven games.
The Clippers were never the same after that series. Brand blew out his Achilles and missed most of the 2008 season. Star point guard Baron Davis actually wanted to team up with Brand the following year and sign with the Clippers, but Brand would sabotage the supposedly done deal by signing with the 76ers for $84 million. Elgin Baylor, left reeling, traded for Marcus Camby and Zach Randolph, whose contracts combined for $27 million a year.
Baylor finally got canned after that fiasco, but as a parting gift, he hits Sterling with a racial discrimination suit. Later, Sterling would be banned for life from the NBA in 2014 after he was recorded saying that he didn’t want black players such as Magic Johnson attending his games. He would sell the team to former Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer for a whopping $2 billion, but even as the new owner turned a new leaf through re-branding and rebuilding, the bad taste still lingers to this day.
Though it’s fairly recent memory, I’ll recap everything that’s happened to the team since 2009:
- The team made Blake Griffin the first-overall pick in the draft, passing on both James Harden and Stephen Curry. Blake got hurt in a preseason game in 2009, and missed the entire season.
- In the 2010 draft, the Clippers held the eighth spot and were between three small forwards: Al Farouq Aminu, Paul George, and Gordon Hayward. The Clips take Aminu; even with another world-class blunder, Griffin lives up to the hype, with Sports Illustrated labelling him as one of the NBA’s 15 Greatest Rookies of All Time
- In 2011, the Clippers tried to get out of Baron Davis’ awful contract. They traded him and their 2011 first-round pick to the Cavs for Mo Williams and Jamario Moon. They held the eighth-best odds to get the first overall pick, and yet they actually got lucky for once, as they win the draft lottery. They had the chance to take future superstar Kyrie Irving! Oh wait, never mind — they traded their pick to the Cavs. For Mo Williams. Oops.
- In 2012, the Clippers haul in a big win by obtaining Chris Paul for Eric Gordon, Al Farouq Aminu, and some other smaller pieces. With DeAndre Jordan emerging as a star and leading the league in field goal percentage, the team finally had their own Big 3 to build around. They would beat the Grizzlies in seven games, only to get swept by Pop and the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs.
- In 2013, the team would pick up celebrated coach Doc Rivers. They went up 2–0 on the Grizzlies after CP3 hit a buzzer beater in Game 2. Blake would get hurt in Game 4, however, and the Grizzlies won four straight games to take the series.
- In 2014, the Clippers beat the Warriors in the first round. Tied 2–2 with the Thunder and up seven with 49 seconds left in Game 5, Kevin Durant hit a three. Paul tried to draw a shooting foul on Westbrook to no avail; after a two-pointer and a three-point shooting foul by CP3 on Westbrook, the Thunder won Game 5. They would take the series after winning Game 6.
- In 2015, Clips beat a veteran Spurs team in seven games on a game-winning floater by Paul. Facing the Rockets in the next round and up 3–1 in the series, they lost Game 5 on the road and proceeded to blow a 19-point fourth-quarter lead at home in Game 6. They would lose Game 7.
- In 2016, the Clips went up 2–0 on a young Portland team. Blake, Paul, and Austin Rivers all got knocked out of the series with injuries, and the Trail Blazers won in six games.
- In 2017, Blake got hurt again in the playoffs, and the Clips lose three of their four home playoff games to the Jazz. The Paul-Griffin-Jordan Era ended with both another Game Seven loss and too-early exit from the playoffs, as Paul would be traded to the Rockets in the offseason and Griffin dealt to the Pistons during the 2018 campaign.
Amid strong rumors of DeAndre Jordan’s seemingly imminent departure sometime before the trade deadline on Thursday, all signs point towards a complete teardown and rebuild for Los Angeles’ second basketballing franchise. With three of the top players in the league from 2012–2017, it’s both sad and frustrating that the best this team could muster was a blown seven-game series against the Rockets in the second round of the 2015 playoffs. And pretty soon, the roster will be left in absolute shambles compared to the excitement brought by the trade for CP3 back in 2012
Do you believe in the Curse of the Clippers now? Because it’s not just one or two missed draft picks, bad free agent signings, choked playoff games, gruesome injuries, or bad trades. It’s lots of them. I don’t think any team has dealt with as many problems in the history of sports. So before we say that the Curse of the Bambino and the Cubs’ 104-year-drought are the worst jinxes in sports history, let’s remember the Clippers.
At least, I’m sure all 20 of their fans will.
After researching the sad history of the Clippers Jonathan ‘JP’ Peikes is quite happy he never has to analyze such a terrible franchise ever again. You can follow JP @jpfisher6 on Twitter.
