2014: Clippers Year in Review
- Updated: January 1, 2015
AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez
Sunday April 27th, 2014. The Los Angeles Clippers gather at center court of Oracle Arena for game four of the Western Conference Quarterfinals. What has become a crucial Pacific Division rivalry for the Clippers now seems insignificant. The team tosses their blue and red Clipper warmups inside out on to the floor. Revealing nothing more than an inside out red t-shirt. This was it, this is how the Clippers chose to protest an owner that would later receive the harshest of punishments a sport can give – a lifetime ban. Whether Clipper fans want it to be the truth or not this year will largely be remembered as the year Donald Sterling casted a cloud over the organization. But there was so much more to be remembered from 2014.
2014 served as half of the first and second seasons the Clippers served under Head Coach and Senior Vice President of Basketball Operations Doc Rivers. Oh how the team has come along under his tutelage. Blake Griffin finished the 2013-14 season third in MVP voting, averaging 24.1 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists a game that season. Also, if there was one player that made the biggest leap under Rivers’ assistance, it’s DeAndre Jordan. Jordan became the defensive juggernaut we all thought he could be last season averaging 2.48 blocks per game and started to snatch up rebounds at an ever impressive rate of 13.6 per game which led the entire NBA.
The end of the regular season also proved to give the Clippers their greatest regular season finish ever, with fifty-seven wins. The hope was that this new team high would drive the Clippers with excellent momentum into the playoffs. In steps V. Stiviano and Sterling, and there goes any momentum. The Clippers would pull through the series against Golden State in seven games and advance to take on MVP Kevin Durant and his Oklahoma City Thunder. That series would end in six, not in the Clippers favor.
April 29, 2014 – Sterling is banned for life, Clipper fans everywhere leap off their couches and immediately a weight is lifted. It is no longer the thought of how long will we be good until our unaware owner blows the team up because he’s tired of spending his money on us, now it’s who the new owner will be and how focused will they be on the Clippers. Rumors start to fly. Floyd Mayweather in one group, Oprah Winfrey in another. There was even a rumor Magic Johnson, arguably the greatest Laker of all time, wanted to buy the team. A name that flew under the radar at least to the general public who weren’t in on the negotiations was ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Ballmer, with an estimated net worth somewhere in the twenty-billion dollar range, clearly had the finances to make the move happen. Once his bid became public, it became clear he was serious about receiving control of this organization. The Clippers would sell to Ballmer for the price of two-billion dollars. Up there for the highest price ever received for a sports franchise with the cross-town Los Angeles Dodgers. As quickly as all Clipper fans could ask how enthusiastic Ballmer would be about his new team, he responded at his opening rally in August. All of the sudden, Clipper nation went from being owned by a racist unstable person to one of the most enthusiastic over the top owners in sports. And we couldn’t be anymore excited at the enthusiasm Ballmer has pumped into the Clippers and its fans.
In just about every game of this new 2014-15 season Ballmer can be seen sitting behind the basket, losing his mind every time Blake or DJ goes up for the big jam and throws it back down. The Clippers are off to a relatively slow start for what most of us imagined in this second year under Rivers and crew currently sitting at 22-11 after a big win against the Knicks last night. However Doc has been quoted recently as saying this team is very close to a turnaround, and I tend to believe the former coach of the year. No matter the outcome of the Knicks game to end out the 2014 campaign. All Clipper fans should be more than happy with the 2014 we had as it seems to have opened up the future for the franchise. No doubt it was as tough of a year a franchise could have, but with Ballmer and Rivers standing at the helm, things could be a lot worse.
Happy New Years Clipper faithful, here’s to our first championship in 2015(Let me dream). Go Clips Go!
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