Ss&r: The Battle For Los Angeles Is Just Beginning

My latest on the Lakers vs. Clippers rivalry:

From the moment I was born I was taught that Los Angeles Lakers basketball was a way of life, just as most kids growing up in Southern California during the 1980's were. In fact, the earliest memory I have is of watching Kareem's sky hook on TV and trying to mimic it on a Playskool mini-hoop that my dad had bought me. There was something about the game, something about the team, that hooked me from an early age.

My dad took me to my first live game at the Great Western Forum when I was 5, and my excitement level was off the charts. To watch Magic, Kareem, Worthy, and the rest of the Showtime Lakers live in person instead of on our TV was incredible. I cheered like a maniac throughout the game and even wagged my finger, Dikembe Mutombo-style, at Charles Barkley when he was ejected for throwing an elbow.

When the games were on my dad and I would sit and watch, him ever the pessimist that believed the game was "over" if the Lakers were down at any point in the first half, while I was just mesmerized by the sights and sounds. He instilled in me a love for the Lakers while Magic Johnson and the Showtime squad proved that, at its highest level, basketball ceases to be sport and becomes art. We would turn the TV volume all the way down and bring in the radio for nationally televised games so we could experience the Lakers as they were meant to be, with the late, great Chick Hearn doing the play by play.


The one thing we didn't do was watch the Clippers. Even when the youth team that I played on wound up with the unfortunate luck of being named after LA's other team, they were still kept out of our Lakers-centric world. The Clippers were in LA just to leach off of the growing metropolis, and as such their presence was nothing more than an annoyance to be endured.

Year in and year out, the Lakers featured superstars, celebrities, championships, and beautiful basketball. The Clippers had none of those things. They were the Bad News Bears of the NBA, and had dared to encroach on the Lakers territory in 1984, when Showtime was in full swing.

Today, things have changed quite a bit. While my dad and I still don't watch much Clippers basketball, our beloved Lakers have fallen on hard times, breaking the franchise record for losses in the past two consecutive seasons while aging star Kobe Bryant fights a losing battle against Father Time. A series of poor decisions and terrible injuries have made those glorious days of Showtime feel farther away than ever before. TV ratings are down and ticket prices are actually dropping, which is something that happens about as often as James Harden shaves.

Read the rest HERE and let me know what you think!

 

Another well composed article. While dealing fairly with our bleak (but hopefully brief) recent state of affairs. What I got mostly from the article, is that ever Laker fan should have a line in the sand, where no matter what they can never be a Clippers fan.

Keep up the good work.

 

Thanks, I appreciate that! And yes, that's correct. There is no valid excuse for being a Clippers fan.

 

Never met a clippers fan in my life....I believe Staples can fit all of them at once...)))

 

Great article. I've always lived by the notion that either I'm a fan of the Lakers or I'm a fan of no team. Simple as that.

 

Absolutely. I have teams I will support in certain match ups, like I usually pull for whoever is playing against Cleveland, Houston, Clippers.

But I can't truly be a fan of any team but the Lakers.

 

LA will always be Lakertown

the clippers will never be anything more than the JV squad sharing a building with us and literally playing under the Lakers shadow of success. and even if someone is more open-minded than myself, this current clippers team is pretty hard to root for with all the divas and floppers like cp3 and griffin and rivers at the helm. for a team that's never even come close to winning a damn thing, they sure are unlikeable

 

In fairness you should have had the disclaimer, "no offense to pansies everywhere"

 

I know in terms of history the Clippers can't hold a candle to the Lakers but the title "Battle for LA" was more about the fact that the Clippers are consistently on ESPN highlight-reels and being promoted while the Lakers are being pitied. As a result the younger generation is in danger of growing up as Clippers fans, and that's not a good thing for the future Lakers fan base. That doesn't mean LA is going to become a Clippers town, but if things continue as they are with the Clips on top and the Lakers struggling we will see a much closer split between Lakers and Clippers fans.

 

Their moving to Seattle...give it time and they won't be here anymore.

 

So when it comes time to pay DeAndre what he likely would get on the open market..... if they do would that put them painfully over the cap into the penalty money?

On that topic for them and for teams everywhere that are over next year, when the new CAP goes up in 2(?) years.....are they forgiven wherever they are currently next year? Penalty? Repeater penalty?

 

I did, and mentioned the TV ratings in the article. I haven't seen any conclusive numbers as far as exactly how many Lakers fans exist vs. how many Clippers fans exist, but my assumption would be that right now there are a higher percentage of Clippers fans tuning and attending games compared to the percentage of Lakers fans doing the same. The Lakers TV ratings are higher simply because there are a lot more Lakers fans out there. I would also imagine casual NBA fans and fans of other teams are more likely to watch the Clippers instead of the Lakers, but again, can't support that with any concrete statistics.

I'm not saying that's a trend that's going to continue though. Overall, the Clippers actually lost viewers compared to last year, just as the Lakers did. That could be for any number of reasons, including Griffin's injury, more competition from other forms of entertainment/social media, more people "cutting the cord" and doing away with cable-thus losing their access to some televised sports, etc. It could also be that fans are tired of seeing the Clippers flop and whine, which can be off-putting in spite of the excitement of Lob City.

The bottom line is that the Lakers are going to continue to see their numbers decrease until they provide a product worth watching, and that's the case whether the Clippers are in Los Angeles or Tokyo. The danger for the Lakers right now is that the Clippers are successful and should they have a strong playoff run and offseason, could pull in more and more of the younger viewers. Every year that the Lakers are down and Clippers are up increases the number of kids buying CP3 and Griffin jerseys instead of Kobe ones.

The Clippers are never going to touch the Lakers past. It's just not going to happen. The future is up for grabs though, and as ingrained as Lakers basketball is into So Cal, if the Lakers rebuild turns into a long-term thing and the Clippers are able to find continued success then there could be a problem for the good guys.

Do I think that is what will happen? No. Chris Paul is getting older and I don't think Griffin is going to be able to continue at his current level of play once his athleticism inevitably slips. I'm also not confident in Doc's abilities as a GM, and could see him chasing a "win now" move that blows up and sets the team back. Still, for now the pressure is on the Lakers to show growth next season with some exciting young players and take control of their house.

The Clippers hold team options on Crawford and Barnes for next year, so in theory they could let those two guys walk and extend Jordan without hitting the luxury tax. I doubt they do that though, as Crawford is their biggest weapon of the bench and Barnes has had something of a bounce back season. Yes, paying DeAndre the max and keeping Barnes and Crawford would up their payroll quite a bit, but as you mentioned, the cap is going up after next season, which buys them breathing room. Also Ballmer spent 2 billion on the franchise and is one of the wealthiest people on the planet, so I don't expect him to pinch pennies now. Jordan could be lured away by another team, but it won't be because the Clippers won't pay him...unless of course they decide that Jordan isn't worth the max.

And here's a scary thought: we don't know how much the cap is going up. Crawford and Barnes would expire after next year, leaving the Clips with CP3, Jordan, Griffin, Reddick, and Hawes under contract for 2016/2017. What if it goes up enough for the Clippers to chase a max player to add to that core? The same could be said for any team that can contend right now. What if OKC can have Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, AND add another max salary when the cap goes up?

This is why it's so important for the Lakers to shift the perception of their team from one that is yesterday's news to one that is young, exciting, and poised for big things. Everyone is going to have cap space to spend the summer after next, so if the Lakers don't get something done this offseason they could find themselves out in the cold in 2016, which gives the Clippers a few more years to bring the young basketball fans in LA over to the dark side.

Is that the doom and gloom version? Absolutely. It's also possible the Lakers land a top pick this year, make a smart decision in free agency (not Rondo), and then roll into next season with essentially 2 top 10 picks added to their lineup (Randle and whoever they draft), a more experienced Clarkson, a free agent like Monroe, Butler/Leonard/Middleton/Harris, Jordan, etc., plus Kobe in "going out in a blaze of glory" mode. That's a team that would bring fans back into the light and isn't an unrealistic scenario.

So there you have it. The Lakers have their work cut out for them, and the threat from the Clips is real, but it's not an obstacle that can't or won't be overcome.

 

Trevor, thanks for the great coverage.

For say the Nets, then, if they were to still be over and in repeater tax territory (?) next season, since the cap goes high enough in 2 seasons to cover where they have the problem now, no lingering penalty going forward for them or anyone else?

I hope RandleROFY is right and the Clips wind up in Seattle. Just need them and their vibe and their giant selfies in the rafters gone. Not that we won't be competing with them and beating their loser franchise a**es again soon enough anyway. In spite of what the sleazy midget did.

 

I'm not a cap expert, but if the salary cap rise causes them to be below the luxury tax line then no, they wouldn't pay it. As of right now they are scheduled to be over the tax this summer but if Brook Lopez declines his option, which is sounding likely, they would drop below it immediately. Thad Young also has a player option he might not exercise, which could drop them even further. Even without the increase in the cap that's going to hit next summer Brooklyn is only at $25 million on the books for 2016/2017, although that's only going to 2 players (Deron Williams and Bojan Bogdanovic) and they will need to fill out there team. So it was unlikely that they would be a tax-paying team for much longer anyway.

They would have to pay the luxury tax and the repeater until they get to that point, although we don't yet know where the tax line will be set for next season. It was at roughly $77 million last summer. Here's an article about the repeater tax and it's exaggerated impact, but it does seem as though the rise in the cap is going to help even big spending teams avoid paying the repeater.

As for the Clips going to Seattle...in a perfect world it makes a lot of sense to take a superfluous franchise out of one city and give it to one that's desperate for an NBA team like Seatlle is, but Ballmer just paid $2 billion for them. Part of the reason they had that kind of value is because they are in LA, if he were to move the team to Seattle they would instantly be worth a lot less. As wealthy as Ballmer is I doubt he is going to do anything to devalue one of his businesses. It would be like spending $20 million on a beachfront home in Malibu and then tearing out the home and taking it to Phoenix, where a home of that size and quality would be worth a fraction of what it was on the beach. No one in their right mind would do that.