What is the closest the Clippers have come to a title?

The 2021 Western Conference Finals is the deepest run in franchise history. The 2015 team led Houston 3-1 in the second round with a big Game 6 lead, and the 2020 team led Denver 3-1 in the bubble. Both lost the series.

Have the Clippers ever won a division title?

Yes. The Clippers won their first Pacific Division title in 2012-13 and repeated in 2013-14, both during the Lob City era.

Have the Clippers Ever Won a Championship?

Q: Have the Clippers ever won an NBA championship?

No. The Clippers franchise, founded in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves, has never won an NBA championship and has never reached the NBA Finals. Their deepest playoff run was the 2021 Western Conference Finals, which they lost to the Phoenix Suns in six games.

Updated July 2026

No. In 55 seasons since entering the NBA in 1970, the Clippers franchise has never won a championship and has never reached the NBA Finals. Their deepest run is the 2021 Western Conference Finals. They are one of the few NBA franchises never to play for the title.

Now the part search engines will not tell you: how close it has come, and why an entire fan base keeps showing up anyway.

The near misses, ranked by pain

2021, the conference finals. The Clippers survived two 0-2 holes, lost Kawhi Leonard to a knee injury, and still pushed Phoenix for six games in the franchise's first ever conference finals. The closest they have been, on one leg.
2015, the Houston collapse. Up 3-1 in the second round, with a 19-point second half lead in Game 6 at home, one win from the conference finals. The Rockets bench outscored a champion-quality Clippers team, then Houston took Game 7. Fans do not discuss this one at dinner.
2020, the bubble. Up 3-1 on Denver with the most talented roster in team history. Lost three straight in an empty gym in Orlando.
2006, Game 7 in Phoenix. The Elton Brand Clippers won a playoff round and took a great Suns team the full distance in the second round.
1975-76, Buffalo. The Braves era teams won 49 and 46 games and traded blows with dynasty Celtics squads in the playoffs. Then the franchise got traded out from under them. Literally.

Why no title, honestly

The short version has a name: Donald Sterling owned the team from 1981 to 2014 and ran it as cheaply as any franchise in professional sports. Draft luck was catastrophic when it mattered, injury luck was worse, and the best rosters ran into all-time great opponents. Since Steve Ballmer bought the team in 2014, the resources problem is gone. The rings gap remains, and closing it is the whole plot of the current era.

What they have won

Real things, just not the last one. Division titles in 2013 and 2014, the first in franchise history. Nine straight winning seasons from 2011-12 through 2019-20. An MVP (Bob McAdoo, 1975), scoring titles, Rookie of the Year winners, and a 2021 conference finals banner that the team, in a very self-aware move, chose not to hang. The first Finals trip is still out there, un-won, which means the greatest moment in franchise history is guaranteed to be in the future. Not every fan base can say that.

EraThe Kawhi Era, home of the deepest run.
PlayCould you have changed it? Rewrite Clippers History.
Q.What happened to Lob City?