The Clippers have moved twice, and both moves are stranger than any other franchise relocation in the sport. Here is the whole chain of events.
Move one: Buffalo to San Diego, 1978
The Buffalo Braves did not move the normal way. Owner John Y. Brown and Boston Celtics owner Irv Levin swapped entire franchises, the only trade of its kind in American pro sports history. Brown wanted the Celtics. Levin, a California film producer, wanted a team near home, so he took the Braves west, landed in San Diego, and renamed them after the clipper ships in the bay. Buffalo, a genuinely good basketball town that had supported an MVP-caliber team, has never gotten another NBA franchise.
Move two: San Diego to Los Angeles, 1984
Sterling bought the team in 1981 and took out newspaper ads promising San Diego he was committed to the city. Three years later he relocated to the Los Angeles Sports Arena without a league vote. The NBA sued him for tens of millions; Sterling countersued, and the matter settled with the Clippers staying in LA. San Diego, like Buffalo before it, never got another team.
Why LA? Sterling's real estate empire, social life and ambitions were all there. He also got the nation's second biggest market at bargain rent in an aging arena. What he did not get, and famously did not spend for, was a team worth watching. The first 27 LA seasons produced four playoff trips, a stretch fans here call The Long Wait.
Was moving to LA a mistake?
For San Diego, obviously painful. For the franchise, the argument has two halves. For decades the Clippers were the second team in a one-team town, permanently in the Lakers' shadow. But the market that once buried them is now their greatest asset: a two billion dollar arena in Inglewood, superstar free agents who actually choose them, and a fan base built from everyone in LA who wanted a team of their own instead of a bandwagon. It took 40 years, but the move finally makes sense.