Ten years ago this week, the NBA approved the sale of the LA Clippers to former Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, officially closing a chapter of franchise history in which Donald Sterling owned the team for 33 years. One of the reasons Ballmer was elated to own the Clippers was the team played its home games in downtown Los Angeles’ Staples Center since 1999.
“When I acquired the team, I was very delighted that I wouldn’t have to build an arena — seriously,” Ballmer said last month. “Because any other team I looked at, at any time, whether I was Seattle for a while, Sacramento maybe moving to Seattle, which he league said we couldn’t do. Whether it was Milwaukee, they all needed arenas.
“That is the time in which teams might sell. I said, ‘This is great. I got a team. It’s in L.A. And I don’t need to build an arena’ All good.”
Ballmer would learn the complications of the Clippers’ arrangement in downtown Los Angeles. The Clippers were the third team in the building, one of the busiest in the world. They were behind the Los Angeles Kings and the Los Angeles Lakers for scheduling priority on an annual basis, putting the Clippers at a logistical disadvantage.
“Six months later? We got to build an arena,” Ballmer said.
The new Clippers arena is finally ready for a grand opening. Intuit Dome, situated in Inglewood, Calif., has its first event Thursday night with the first of two nights of shows featuring Grammy Award-winning recording artist Bruno Mars. Before Mars takes the stage for a three-hour show, there will be a ribbon cutting and a red carpet.
The $2 billion arena that broke ground in September 2021 has features that will make it stand out right away.
The exterior of the building is designed to look like a basketball net. The scoreboard, dubbed the “Halo Board”, is the first of its kind in an NBA arena. The seating alongside the visitor’s bench baseline is “The Wall,” 51 straight rows with no suites designed to create an atmosphere of noise that rivals the most hostile arenas in the league.
Intuit Dome features five basketball courts, including the team’s practice courts and facilities.
But the most critical part of Intuit Dome’s opening and existence is the NBA schedule. The 2024-25 schedule also is out Thursday, and the Clippers will officially open regular-season play at their new home against Pacific Division rival Phoenix Suns on Oct. 23.
It is one of nine nationally televised games the Clippers will have in the 2024-25 season, excluding NBA TV.
“We got to build our house,” Ballmer said in July, explaining the importance of the Clippers having their own arena. “We got to put the energy in our house. We don’t want to play too many Monday nights against ‘Monday Night Football.’ We don’t want to play as many Saturday games. We don’t want to have to cover up banners of other guys in order for it to at least feel marginally like our house.
“It’s got to be our house. Took me six months, and I went from ‘Oh, we don’t have to build one,’ to ‘Oh, we’re going to build one.’”
Last regular season, the Clippers had ten matinee home games, going 5-5 while trailing by double digits at some point in all of them. The team’s home schedule for the 2024-25 season currently has zero matinee games; all of the home games on the schedule start no earlier than 6 p.m. local time. The only time the Clippers had a home schedule with zero afternoon starts in the 25 years the team played downtown was in the 2000-01 season.
Speaking of Grammys, the Clippers and Lakers would often be displaced for a long winter road trip due to the Grammy Awards in downtown L.A. The Clippers once had an 11-game road trip in 2011, going 24 days between home games. While the Clippers are on the road before the Grammy Awards next season, it’s only a four-game road trip.
The longest road trip the Clippers have is a seven-game trip after the All-Star break, but two of those games will be a miniseries against the Lakers. The Clippers are currently scheduled to see every other Western Conference opponent at least once before they see the Lakers for the first time next season.
The Clippers are the latest team to enter a new arena with a new brand identity, something 15 other teams have done when moving into their current arenas.
But this also is a period of transition for the Clippers. While the roster still features All-NBA forward Kawhi Leonard and former NBA MVP James Harden, the team parted ways with All-Star forward Paul George and former NBA MVP Russell Westbrook this offseason.
George will return to face the Clippers on Nov. 6 with the Philadelphia 76ers to end a five-game homestand, while Westbrook is scheduled to visit with the Denver Nuggets on Dec. 1.
LA has added contributors such as forward Derrick Jones Jr., forward Nicolas Batum and guard Kris Dunn.
Per league sources, the Clippers are preparing for the possibility that forward PJ Tucker will be with the team to begin the season as well. Tucker opted into the final year of his contract and though the Clippers explored trading him, roster spots around the league are accounted for, making a deal unlikely before training camp.
Ballmer wanted to open Intuit Dome with a championship, and the Clippers showed over the last three years that they were not close to that, failing to win a playoff series since the franchise’s only conference finals appearance in 2021. The hope for Ballmer is the Clippers having an arena built specifically for the team for the first time in franchise history will be another step towards an elusive Finals appearance.
“There used to be a classic TV commercial that ran about Avis rental cars,” Ballmer said. “‘We’re Avis. We’re number two, but we try harder.’ We have no championships. We don’t. And we are going to try harder. We’re going to work harder. We’re going to do what we can in every way, shape, and form for our fans and for our team.”
Required reading
(Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
