Los Angeles Clippers

Published April 19, 2026 · By The Basketball Fans Editors

The Los Angeles Clippers are a 1970 NBA expansion franchise that have, in 55 years of operation, never won an NBA championship, never reached the NBA Finals, and reached the NBA Conference Finals once (2021). They are the only NBA franchise older than 25 years without a Finals appearance. For most of their existence between 1984 and 2014, they were the most-derided franchise in American professional sports, owned by Donald Sterling and run under a front-office culture that multiple NBA and federal civil-rights investigations subsequently documented as including systematic racial discrimination in the Beverly Hills-based real-estate holdings that generated the team’s primary revenue. On April 25, 2014, TMZ published audio recordings of Sterling making racist remarks to his girlfriend V. Stiviano about her attending games with Black friends. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver banned Sterling for life from the NBA on April 29, 2014. On August 12, 2014, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the franchise from the Sterling Family Trust for $2 billion, then the highest price paid for an NBA franchise. Ballmer has owned the team since. Under Ballmer, the franchise has produced its first sustained playoff era, its first Conference Finals appearance, and a new arena in Inglewood (the Intuit Dome, which opened in August 2024).

Founding (1970) and the Buffalo years (1970–1978)

The Buffalo Braves were founded on February 6, 1970 as an NBA expansion franchise along with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Portland Trail Blazers. The Braves played their first season in 1970-71 at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. They went 22-60. Bob McAdoo was the team’s 1971 first-round draft pick (second overall, from North Carolina) and became the 1974-75 NBA MVP. The 1974-75 Braves went 49-33 and reached the playoffs for the first time. They lost in the second round.

The Braves reached the playoffs three consecutive years (1974, 1975, 1976) under head coach Jack Ramsay. The 1975-76 team featured McAdoo, Randy Smith, Jim McMillian, and John Shumate. Ramsay left for Portland in 1976, where he won the 1977 championship.

The San Diego relocation (1978–1984)

John Y. Brown, the Kentucky Fried Chicken magnate, purchased the Braves in 1976 and immediately began attempting to relocate the franchise. Over the 1976-78 seasons he traded away most of the roster, including Bob McAdoo, in what several NBA-era histories have described as a deliberate strategy to devalue the franchise and move it. In 1978 he swapped ownership of the Braves for the Boston Celtics ownership (a transaction with Celtics owner Irv Levin) and simultaneously moved the Braves to San Diego, where they were renamed the San Diego Clippers. The swap was approved by the NBA on July 13, 1978.

The San Diego Clippers played at San Diego Sports Arena from 1978 to 1984 and never posted a winning season. Bill Walton played for them from 1979 to 1984 in an injury-marred run that produced only one healthy season (1981-82, 33 games).

The Donald Sterling Los Angeles era (1984–2014)

Donald Sterling, a real-estate attorney from Los Angeles, purchased the San Diego Clippers for $12.5 million in 1981. In 1984 he relocated the franchise to Los Angeles without NBA approval. The league fined him $25 million. He appealed, reached a settlement, and the NBA allowed the relocation. The Clippers began play at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in the 1984-85 season. They went 31-51 the first year.

Sterling owned the franchise for 30 seasons. During that time:

• The Clippers went to the playoffs 13 times (none before 1992)
• The Clippers won two playoff series total (1992 first round, 2006 first round)
• The Clippers never reached the conference finals
• The Clippers drafted and traded Danny Manning (#1 overall 1988) to Atlanta after four seasons
• The Clippers drafted and traded Ron Harper (#8 overall 1986) to Cleveland
• The Clippers had 11 different head coaches between 1984 and 2014

The 2011-12 Clippers, under new head coach Vinny Del Negro, traded for Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornets (the full trade context is on our Chris Paul biography). They paired Paul with Blake Griffin (the 2009 first overall pick) and DeAndre Jordan. The “Lob City” era produced the most sustained competitive stretch the franchise had ever had. The 2013-14 Clippers went 57-25 and reached the second round.

The April 25, 2014 Sterling recording and the Ballmer purchase

On April 25, 2014, TMZ published audio recordings of Donald Sterling, in a phone conversation with his girlfriend V. Stiviano, making racist remarks about her attending Clippers games with Black friends (including Magic Johnson). On April 29, 2014, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver held a press conference announcing that Sterling was banned for life from the NBA, fined $2.5 million, and would be forced to sell the franchise. Silver’s action, in part, was driven by a unanimous private vote of NBA players’ union representatives (led by then-president Chris Paul, see our Chris Paul biography) supporting an immediate boycott if Sterling was not removed.

On August 12, 2014, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the Los Angeles Clippers from the Sterling Family Trust for $2 billion. The price was the highest ever paid for an NBA franchise and, at the time, the highest price paid for a sports franchise in any North American league. (The record has since been broken multiple times.)

The Ballmer era (2014–present)

Ballmer’s first decision was to bring in Doc Rivers as head coach and president of basketball operations (Rivers had been coaching the team under Sterling). The 2014-15 through 2018-19 Clippers made the playoffs five times and never reached the second round, which produced a period of basketball frustration despite ownership investment.

On July 10, 2019, the Clippers signed Kawhi Leonard as a free agent (details on our Kawhi Leonard biography). They simultaneously acquired Paul George from Oklahoma City in exchange for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Danilo Gallinari, and five first-round picks. The combination gave the Clippers what was, at the time, the most talented star pairing in NBA history assembled without trading a single Hall of Fame-level player.

The 2020-21 Clippers reached the Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history. They lost to the Phoenix Suns in six games. Kawhi Leonard missed the series with a torn right-knee ACL.

The injury-cursed years (2021–2025)

The 2021-22 through 2024-25 Clippers cycled through Leonard, George, and subsequent additions (James Harden in November 2023, Russell Westbrook in 2023-24) in configurations that never produced more than a second-round playoff result. Leonard’s chronic knee injuries (covered on our Kawhi Leonard biography) and George’s departure to Philadelphia in July 2024 reduced the star talent on the floor.

The 2024-25 Clippers added Jimmy Butler in a February 6, 2025 trade (detailed on our Jimmy Butler biography and our Miami Heat franchise page). They reached the play-in tournament and lost in the first round. The Clippers waived Chris Paul in December 2025 after 16 games, in a move that ended his 21-season NBA career (see our Chris Paul biography).

The Intuit Dome (2024)

On August 15, 2024, the Clippers opened the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California as their new home arena. The building cost approximately $2 billion (all paid for by Ballmer personally, without public financing). It is the first American professional sports arena with 100% solar-panel-integrated power generation. It includes a four-sided “Halo” scoreboard that is the largest in any indoor American sports venue. The building’s ticketing and concession systems are entirely integrated with Intuit’s financial-platform infrastructure. The Clippers left Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center), which they had shared with the Lakers since 1999, and are now the first Los Angeles-area NBA franchise with a single-tenant arena.

Legacy

The Los Angeles Clippers remain, as of 2026, the NBA franchise with the most games played without an NBA Finals appearance. The aggregate regular-season record through 2025-26 is approximately 1,700 wins and 2,600 losses, one of the worst cumulative records of any active NBA franchise. The Ballmer era, now 12 years in, has produced the franchise’s most-sustained competitive stretch but has not produced the Finals berth that was the stated goal of the 2019 Leonard-George acquisition. The 2025-26 roster, with Kawhi Leonard, Norman Powell, Bradley Beal (acquired summer 2024), James Harden, and Ivica Zubac, is entering the post-Paul George, post-Butler era.

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Sources

Basketball-Reference is the primary franchise statistical source. The Buffalo and San Diego relocation history is from The Buffalo News archives and Pete Babcock’s 1985 book Buffalo Braves: A Year in the NBA. The Donald Sterling era is documented in Ramona Shelburne’s April 2014 ESPN feature and in subsequent Los Angeles Times coverage. The April 2014 Stiviano recording and the Silver press conference are from ESPN and NBA.com official archives. The Ballmer purchase details are from the Wall Street Journal’s August 2014 coverage. The Lob City era is from Lee Jenkins’s December 2013 Sports Illustrated feature.