The San Diego Years

The Clippers name was born here, in 1978, when the relocated Braves needed an identity and someone looked out at San Diego Bay. Clipper ships were the fastest sailing vessels of their day. The team named after them never made the playoffs once in six tries. The name stuck anyway, and so did the pattern.

All aboard, sort of

New owner Irv Levin wanted a California team, and San Diego wanted back into the NBA after losing the Rockets to Houston in 1971. The marriage looked promising. The Clippers won 43 games in their first San Diego season, still one of the better records in franchise history, and missed the playoffs by a coin flip's worth of games. It would be the closest they ever got there.

World B. Free, appointment viewing

The best reason to buy a ticket was Lloyd Free, the Brooklyn guard with a rainbow jumper launched from somewhere near the beach. He averaged 28.8 points a game in 1978-79 and 30.2 the next season, finishing second in the league in scoring both years and making the 1980 All-Star team. He later legally changed his name to World B. Free, which tells you most of what you need to know about how much fun he was.

The Walton heartbreak

In 1979 the Clippers made the kind of move the franchise would repeat for decades: the huge swing that logic loves and injury luck destroys. Bill Walton, San Diego's own, the 1977 Finals MVP and 1978 league MVP, signed with his hometown team. His feet never let him deliver. He played 14 games his first season, missed two full years, and managed only partial seasons after that. One of the greatest players alive spent his prime in street clothes on the Clippers bench. The first great Clippers what-if, and far from the last. You can rerun it yourself in the What-If Machine.

Enter Sterling

In 1981 a Beverly Hills real estate attorney named Donald Sterling bought the Clippers. He took out ads promising San Diego he was there to stay. Within three years he had moved the team to Los Angeles without league permission, gotten sued by the NBA, settled, and set up shop at the LA Sports Arena. San Diego has not had an NBA team since.

The last San Diego seasons still gave fans things to love. Terry Cummings won Rookie of the Year in 1983. Tom Chambers ran the floor before anyone knew what he would become. And in a rare heist, the Clippers landed two-time champion point guard Norm Nixon from the Lakers, though the trade sent back the rights to a kid named Byron Scott, who won three rings across town. Even our wins had a Lakers tax.

What this era means

San Diego is where the franchise's identity got set: a great name, great weather, wild talent, brutal luck, and an owner problem that would define the next three decades. If you find someone who rooted for the San Diego Clippers and never stopped, you have found basketball's most durable optimist.