Every Clippers story starts here, 2,600 miles from Los Angeles, in Buffalo's Memorial Auditorium. The Aud. For eight seasons the Braves gave western New York real, honest NBA hope. Then the strangest ownership deal in sports history took the team away, and Buffalo has never had another one.
An expansion team that got good fast
The Braves entered the NBA in 1970 alongside Cleveland and Portland. The first two seasons went how expansion seasons go. Then two things changed everything. In 1972 the Braves drafted Bob McAdoo out of North Carolina, and in 1973 they hired Jack Ramsay, the professorial coach everyone called Dr. Jack.
McAdoo was unlike anything the league had seen, a big man with a guard's shooting touch. He won Rookie of the Year, then led the NBA in scoring three seasons in a row. In 1975 he was named Most Valuable Player. Fifty years later, he is still the only MVP this franchise has ever had.
The team around him
The Braves were more than one star. Ernie DiGregorio, the flashy little playmaker from Providence, led the league in assists as a rookie and won Rookie of the Year in 1974, giving Buffalo back to back winners of the award. And then there was Randy Smith.
Smith is the best story in franchise history that nobody outside Buffalo knows. A seventh round pick in 1971, drafted 104th mostly as a local courtesy because he starred at Buffalo State, he simply refused to be cut. He became an iron man, an All-Star, the MVP of the 1978 All-Star Game, and to this day the franchise's all-time leader in points and games played. A seventh rounder. It remains the best value pick the Braves, or the Clippers, ever made.
- 1970Expansion team is born, sharing the Aud with a hockey town's first love.
- 3Straight playoff trips, 1974 to 1976, pushing great Boston and Washington teams to the limit.
- 1975Bob McAdoo wins MVP. Still the franchise's only one.
- 104thWhere Randy Smith was drafted. He retired as the franchise scoring leader.
How it fell apart
The playoff years should have been the beginning. Instead ownership churn wrecked everything. Founding owner Paul Snyder sold to John Y. Brown, a fried chicken magnate who stripped the roster for cash. McAdoo was traded to the Knicks in 1976, and Buffalo fans reacted the way you would expect people to react when someone sells the sun.
Then came the ending. In the summer of 1978, Brown and Boston Celtics owner Irv Levin executed the only deal of its kind ever: they traded franchises. Brown took the Celtics. Levin, a Californian who wanted a team out west, took the Braves and moved them to San Diego. Eight years of Buffalo basketball ended in a paperwork swap.
One more twist of the knife: Dr. Jack Ramsay left in 1976 and immediately coached Portland to the 1977 championship. Watching a former Clipper or Brave win somewhere else is a fan tradition that started early.
Why Buffalo still matters
The Braves are not a footnote. The franchise record book still starts with them. The only MVP, the only scoring titles, and the toughness at the root of this fan base all come from Buffalo. When you see a Braves throwback in the Intuit Dome crowd, that is 55 years of memory walking around. Nod at them.
- NextThe team heads west: The San Diego Years, 1978 to 1984
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