101-105, the Clippers lost to the Pelicans in the Western Conference Playoffs to grab eight, declaring them out of the playoffs.
In this life-and-death battle, the Clippers did not have Paul George, who missed the game because of the trigger of the league's health and safety agreement (insiders broke George's positive covid-19), and watched from the sidelines with Leonard, who was recovering from a knee injury and had not played a game this season.
George missed 51 games this season because of an elbow injury, from the end of December 2021 to hang up the exemption card, until March 30, 2022 to come back, after returning to play 5 regular season games, the Clippers 4 wins and 1 loss, the original state of the wind and waves, but the result was hit by the health and safety agreement this "reef", capsized and sank.
In the history of the NBA, teams like the Clippers are extremely rare, and most of the time in the 52 years of the team's existence, they are either neither strength nor luck, or strength and luck, and rarely have strength and luck, as if they have been cursed.
The Clippers were founded in 1970 not in Los Angeles, but in Buffalo, New York, under the name Buffalo Braves, an Eastern European team. Two years after its inception, the Braves picked bob McAdoo at the draft, who became the top scorer in the second season of his NBA career, and then achieved a three-game winning streak on the scoring list, bringing the Brave to the playoffs for three consecutive years, and McAdoo was elected MVP in the 1974-75 season.
The original momentum was very good, but the environment was too bad. At that time, the Braves shared a gymnasium with the Kenneth Hughes College basketball team, and Keny hughes Academy felt that the Braves were competing with them for the market, so they tried to squeeze out the market, Keny hughes College had priority in the use of the stadium, and the Braves could only get some schedules that were very unfriendly to the ball market, which greatly affected their box office.
Brave boss Paul Snyder, a businessman who started out as a frozen food businessman, runs the team purely to make money, but the poor situation in the ball market has frustrated Snyder's calculations. In order to cut expenses, Snyder gave an ultimatum to the team's top star, McAdow, either to renew the contract at a low price or to be traded. As the MVP, McAdoo really couldn't accept such a threat from the boss, so the two sides broke down and McAdow was sent to the Knicks. After McAdoo left the team, the Braves did not make the playoffs for 15 consecutive years.
In these 15 years, the team has changed owners and changed the location of the home stadium. Snyder sold the Brave to John Brown, who then made a deal with Ilf Levine, a Southern California native who was the owner of the Celtics and had always wanted to move the Greenshirts to Southern California, but was always opposed by the league. By swapping team ownership, Levin can finally fulfill his dream of a hometown team.
The Braves moved to San Diego in 1978 and changed their name to the San Diego Clippers, signing Bill Walton in the hope that the dominant center who led the Trail Blazers to championships would be re-established. However, contrary to his wishes, Walton has lost his peak due to a foot injury, and he has played only 14 games in his first three years with the Clippers. Levine saw no hope of the team's rise and sold the Clippers to a los Angeles real estate developer.
The clippers' new owner was named Sterling, and the most absurd days in the history of the Clippers began.
Sterling's public image can basically be summed up in two words, "lustful" and "miserly", the former is a private life category, which initially did not have much negative impact on the Clippers, and the latter became the Nightmare of the Clippers since Sterling bought the team.
Shortly after Sterling became clippers owner, an away hotel refused to provide accommodation for the Clippers because the team was in arrears in its previous accommodation. At the same time, the local bus company also stopped supplying vehicles for the Clippers, also on the grounds of arrears. With no cars available and no hotels to stay in, the Clippers were stranded at the airport and nearly missed the race.
Sterling's explanation for this is that the San Diego ball market is not good, affecting him to make money, wants to move the team to Los Angeles, the league refused to move the Clippers again, Sterling launched an antitrust lawsuit, the NBA took the court, and finally the two sides reached a settlement, the league agreed to the Clippers relocation, Sterling withdrew the lawsuit. Although Sterling won the matter, he had a complete grudge with the alliance.
"In those years I've been with the NBA, no team has had more trouble with the league than the Clippers under Sterling." NBA General Counsel Larry Fleischer said.
The Clippers of the Stirling era, with a title - "Los Angeles Horror Cruise", means that the players who step on this "ship" are always prone to injury, veterans are injured, rookies are also injured, such as the Clippers in 1988 selection of Danny Manning, who was the first person in american college basketball that year, the absolute core of the NCAA champion team the University of Kansas, regarded as the "captain" who saved the Clippers, and as a result, he suffered a serious injury to the anterior cruciate ligament tear in his first year of joining the Clippers.
A bizarre boss, coupled with a roster that suffered frequent injuries, the Clippers made only four playoff appearances in the 27 years since they moved to Los Angeles in 1984. Sterling had two opportunities to bring in superstars during this period, and after the Bulls lost to the Pistons again in the 1990 East Finals, he called Bulls owner Reinsdorf and offered to trade any players and draft picks in the team for Jordan, and Klaus, then bulls general manager, really wanted to consider the deal, but Reinsdorf felt that the idea was too crazy and too influential to affect the ball market, so he rejected Sterling's proposal.
Sterling's second chance was to grab Bryant in 2004, and Bryant was indeed closer to joining the Clippers, but Jerry West dissuaded him. "He had given the Clippers a promise at that time to get ready to leave the Lakers," West said, "and he asked me for advice, and I told him, 'Kobe, you can't do that anyway, you can't stand playing for Sterling, absolutely can't stand it, you believe me.'" ’”
Paul came to the Clippers in 2011, changed the situation that this team and the playoffs "do not wear the sky", he and Griffin, Jordan Jr. teamed up to create an empty city, the Clippers broke into the playoffs for 6 consecutive years, but as strong as Paul is also difficult to escape the "Los Angeles Horror Cruise", in 2015 the hamstring injury was reversed by the Rockets 1-3, in 2016 the palm fracture to the Blazers painfully lost a 2-0 lead. Not only Paul, but Griffin is also plagued by injuries, and the "Los Angeles Horror Cruise" is firmly on the opposite side of health.
"Coach Rivers said that to win the championship, you have to be lucky enough, we don't have that luck, that's fate." Paul confessed about his Clippers career.
The team was blocked by injuries, Sterling added to the chaos, and his racial discrimination led to a very poor atmosphere in the Clippers locker room, the team changed owners again, and the super-rich Ballmer became the new owner. Ballmer was so rich that in 2019 he led the team to recruit Leonard, rented a small island in the south of Los Angeles, sent a plane to pick up "small cards" to the meeting place, and played a 60-second animated short film during the meeting to convey to Leonard the vision of building a basketball dynasty, and for this one-minute film alone, Ballmer spent $500,000 to find a top media company to produce.
Ballmer created Leonard and George's star duo in 2019, when "Little Card" was the MVP of the Finals, George was a double team, and the front line was fully attacked and defended the Twin Star Sword Championship, but the result was that the Clippers were turned over by the Nuggets 1-3 in the Western Conference Semifinals, and "Pepper" scored 24 points in the total of 38 shots and 10 in the fourth quarter.
After the Clippers were sent out of the Nuggets, the contradictions within the team broke out, Beverly, Harrell and Lou Wei were rumored to be dissatisfied with Leonard's privilege, in the report, the "small card" can decide which game to rest, when playing, they can choose when to rest, and things such as sticking to San Diego, often rushing to the plane late to let the whole team, etc., in short, the locker room is smoky, rivers has no control.
Ballmer replaced Rivers with Tyrone Lou, Director Lou showed his coaching skills and "hard life" attributes in the 2021 playoffs, the Clippers fell behind 0-2 in two consecutive rounds of the flip series, the team's first time in the Western Conference Finals, but Lou's "hard life" still could not resist the "Los Angeles Horror Cruise", Leonard fell due to a knee injury, George tried his best but could not scream, the Clippers were kicked out of the playoffs by paul's Suns, Paul blasted 41 points in the elimination battle, the fourth quarter 19 points, CP3 stepped on the old club to reach the finals for the first time.
Paul was rejected by the Western Conference finals again and again in the Clippers, and after leaving the Clippers, the Western Conference Finals and the Finals were scored, and you said that the Clippers and Paul who delayed whom?
The Clippers in the 2021-22 season are still tough, but Leonard does not play, George is absent for a long time, and it is difficult to come back because of the health and safety agreement can not play with the Pelicans to win or go home, and the Clippers regular season three-point king Kennard is also missing due to injury. The Clippers, who are leaderless and lacking major generals, have done their best, but they still fell under the pelicans' knife and missed the playoffs.
According to common sense, competitive sports should not believe in metaphysics, but the history of the Clippers has a strong sense of fate of "leisurely in the sky, thinner than me". When the "hard fate" such as Lu Guidance could not stop the Clippers from being abandoned by fate, they could only sigh.
To the Clippers' relief, Leonard's contract with George ends in 2025 (the player option for the 2024-25 season), and even if the option year is not considered, they have two years that can be used to reverse the Clippers' fate together.
Although it failed again, the Clippers still had to believe that no pole Tai Lai would come, and the time would eventually appear.