Streetlights over Spotlights: How the Clippers rebranded their culture
By Joey Linn
The Los Angeles Clippers’ culture:
Being the second team in Los Angeles has been a historical rollercoaster for the Clippers. From their arrival to Los Angeles in 1984 to their acquisition of Chris Paul in 2011, the Clippers were only a playoff team four times. With the Lakers winning eight championships in that same span, it’s safe to say they weren’t the least bit concerned about the other team in Los Angeles.
LA’s basketball scene has indeed been a rollercoaster, because despite the 27-year plateau, the Clippers rapidly ascended while the Lakers fell at the same pace. The man largely behind this reality was Chris Paul.
A deal that would’ve sent Chris Paul to the Lakers was ultimately vetoed by commissioner David Stern. The Clippers jumped at the opportunity to pair CP3 with Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, and ultimately pulled off a deal to acquire the star point guard. Chris Paul became a Clipper in 2011, and subsequently, Lob City was born.
To understand the significance of where the Clippers are now, we must have a firm understanding of where they came from. Chris Paul’s arrival in 2011 marked the first time in franchise history that the Clippers would be taken seriously regarding their championship aspirations.
Expectations weren’t the only foreign territory that the Clippers would step into, as fan attention was also at an all-time high. The Clippers sold-out Staples Center every night of the 2011-12 season for the first time in franchise history, and there was no getting around the fact that they were the NBA’s new shiny object.
It wasn’t just the new roster for the Clippers that was drawing the big crowds and national attention. Lob City was a real thing, and it was unlike anything to ever come through the NBA. In his athletic prime, Blake Griffin could have won the dunk contest every single year.
DeAndre Jordan may have even been able to reach greater heights than Blake in terms of length and leaping ability, and Chris Paul was the league’s best passer. Every single night was a show in the Staples Center, as the Lob City Clippers were taking names in route to a franchise-best .606 winning percentage.
Almost overnight, it felt as if the Clippers had gone from the league’s laughing stock to the league’s bully. Being on the wrong end of a Lob City show was embarrassing, but it was oftentimes unavoidable. All of these dynamics led to league-wide disdain of the Clippers, met with a newfound culture of confidence in Los Angeles.
This newly acquired culture was unique for multiple reasons. For the fans, all their regular seasons were filled with indescribable excitement; however, every year that excitement led to nothing but inevitable disappointment. The goal is to win a championship, and when a team is widely considered talented enough to achieve such a goal, anything less feels like a failure.
For the Clippers and Lob City, this was a continuous cycle. From 2011-2017, the Clippers were in the playoffs every single year. The closest they got to their goal was in 2015, when an MVP-level Blake Griffin had them up 3-1 on Houston in the Western Conference Semi-Finals.
For the Clippers, their 2015 collapse was far from the outlier. In 2013 it was the Clippers blowing a 2-0 lead over Memphis. In 2014, it was Chris Paul’s turnover in Game Five that ended in a one-point series-altering loss.
In 2015, the Clippers were minutes away from the WCF when Josh Smith and Corey Brewer went nuclear. In 2016, Blake Griffin and Chris Paul went down with season-ending injuries within minutes of each other, after being up 2-1 on Portland.
2017 was the last time we’d see Lob City in its entirety, and they characteristically blew a 2-1 series lead to the Utah Jazz. Experiencing this as a fan is undoubtedly humbling. For Clipper fans both old and new, Lob City was a transformative time.
Optimism now comes slowly, and skepticism runs wild. The culture created in Lob City was one of excitement, yet always one of disappointment.
After the loss to Utah in 2017, the feeling surrounding Lob City was that it had ran its course. Speculation of animosity amongst the team’s leaders began to grow, and the top-end talent of the league had drastically passed up this Clippers core. As a result, Chris Paul was traded to Houston, Blake was traded to Detroit, and DeAndre left in free agency to Dallas.
Lob City was the most exciting time in Clippers’ history, and it resurrected a dead franchise. It gave the Clippers a newfound culture of hype and expectations; however, when neither of those were met, and the franchise was now without any of the players who built that up, the feeling was that the Clippers were now a bad team with no identity.
Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Montrezl Harrell, and Steve Ballmer had other plans.