The Bay Area Versus Tinsletown

The State of California is the third largest state in America and with that it is home to numerous professional sports franchises. For many years in the NBA, the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers were just happy to call California home as they’ve both been the forgotten step-sisters to the Los Angeles Lakers. The Warriors franchise began playing in 1946 in Philadelphia before moving to San Francisco in 1962. The Warriors stayed in San Francisco until 1971 when they moved across the bay to Oakland which has been their home ever since. The Clippers came into existence in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves. In 1978, the Braves would move to San Diego where they would be known as the Clippers. And after poor attendance in the 6-1-9, the Clippers would move to Los Angeles in 1984.

The Warriors last won the NBA Championship in 1975 while the Clippers have never hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Until recently, the Warriors and Clippers each had long gaps in between playoff appearances and when they would make the postseason, they would only tease their respective fan bases. The Lakers on the other hand have won 10 NBA Championships since 1980 and over that time they’ve become the gold standard for NBA franchises. But just like the stock market, things have changed in the NBA.

The Lakers are now one of the NBA’s bottom feeders while the Warriors and Clippers are two of the top teams in the league. The Clippers are set to make their fourth consecutive trip to the NBA Playoffs while this season will mark the third time in a row for the Warriors. This season the Warriors have won their first division title since 1976 along with having their first 60-win regular season in franchise history.

The turnaround for both the Warriors and Clippers began in the NBA Draft. For years the Warriors and Clippers have missed out on early draft picks, but they’ve finally begun to get it right. It started for both teams at the 2009 NBA Draft when the Clippers made power forward Blake Griffin the first overall pick while the Warriors selected point guard Steph Curry at the seventh slot. Griffin sat out a year as he was recovering from knee surgery, but he returned to be the NBA’s Rookie of the Year in 2011. Griffin has morphed into a perennial NBA All-Star while also becoming one of the premier high-flyers in the league. Collegiately, Curry built a reputation for himself as a scorer at tiny Davidson University where he led the school to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament in 2008. Curry has taken lessons from his father Dell who was a 17-year NBA veteran and he was also a three-point shooting specialist. For his six-year NBA career, the younger Curry is shooting nearly 44 percent from downtown and once he gets going, just sit back and watch.

For once the Clippers found themselves a draft steal in the second round of the 2008 NBA Draft when they selected center DeAndre Jordan. Jordan entered the NBA after one year of college ball at Texas A&M and he was very raw as far as his basketball skills would go. But through work he has become one of the better rebounders in the NBA as he currently leading the league this season with 14.8 boards per game. However for the Clippers there two most important acquisitions didn’t come through the NBA Draft.

In 2011, the NBA nixed a deal that saw the New Orleans Hornets trade point guard Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers and instead he landed with the Clippers. Jordan and Griffin would now have a viable point guard that could feed them the basketball and thus “Lob City” was born. And in 2013, the Clippers were able to acquire head coach Doc Rivers from the Boston Celtics. As a head coach, Rivers led the Celtics to an NBA Championship in 2008 and he is one of the most well respected head coaches in the league. And Rivers has made a franchise in the Clippers that has been accustomed to losing for so long believe that they can actually contend for an NBA Championship.

For the Warriors, Curry was their first building block towards success and they’ve since added to it. In 2011, shooting guard Klay Thompson was selected by Golden State with the 11th overall pick of the NBA Draft. Like Curry, Thompson is the son of a former NBA player as his father Mychal played in the league for 14 years which was highlighted by him winning a pair of championships with the Lakers. The younger Thompson has also developed into a deadly three-point shooter as he and Curry have been dubbed as the “Splash Brothers”. Along with Curry and Thompson, the Warriors have hit in big through the NBA Draft as they have found players such as power forward Draymond Green and small forward Harrison Barnes who have both added depth to the club.

Without Rivers walking the sidelines for the Clippers, they might have been unable to overcome the Donald Sterling scandal from last spring, but it was his guidance that got Los Angeles through it. As Rivers has had a big hand in the turnaround for the Clippers, former Warriors head coach Mark Jackson was vital for the revival in Oakland. Like Rivers, Jackson was a former NBA point guard and he was also important in the development of Curry. Rivers and Jackson will be forever linked as they were traded for each other back in 1991 when Rivers was sent by the Clippers to the New York Knicks for Jackson.

The Warriors and Clippers met last season in the first round of the NBA Playoffs in an epic seven-game series that could have gone either way, but it was Los Angeles that went on to win. The past few years have also seen these two teams meet in some physical battles as there is no love lost between the Clippers and Warriors.

This season the Warriors are the talk of the NBA as they on the verge of finishing the regular season with the best record in the league. After last season, Jackson was fired as the Warriors head coach and he’s been replaced by another former NBA guard in Steve Kerr who has picked up right where he left off at in Oakland. The Clippers on the other hand currently have the fourth best record in the Western Conference and there is a strong possibility that these two clubs could meet in the Western Conference Semifinals which would just add another chapter to the long and storied sports rivalry between Tinsletown and the Bay Area.

For over 50 years in California, the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers have met on the baseball diamond to slug it out and it has been nearly that same amount of time for the California rivalry between the Oakland Athletics and the Los Angeles Angels as well. In the National Hockey League, the San Jose Sharks have gone at it for over 20 years with the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings and in recent years they have each been one of the top teams in hockey. Until the Rams moved from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1994, they would continuously battle on the gridiron with the San Francisco 49ers which was highlighted by the Niners knocking off the Rams 30-3. And the rivalry in athletics has spilled over to the collegiate ranks as well where you’ll always see the University of Southern California and UCLA clashing with Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley.

For the Warriors and Clippers, they’ve dusted themselves off of the canvas and have emerged as two of the top teams in the NBA. So far this season, the Warriors and Clippers have met three times with Golden State emerging victorious twice. The Clippers and Warriors are scheduled to meet once more in the regular season in what could be the preamble to another meeting in the NBA Playoffs which would only heighten this growing rivalry.