Comments on: Clippers Fan Origin Stories: 213 Hoops Roundtable

By: Thretch

Thretch — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 19:43:16 +0000

Thanks Philippe – all good reasons! I’m with you on being a contrarian and underdog supporter! And Ralph is awesome.

By: Philippe Lelong

Philippe Lelong — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 14:08:31 +0000

I arrived in LA in the Fall of 1979 but didn’t have to a TV until much later. Actually, it’s in the fall of 1991 that, having a seriously tedious task to complete, I put on a basketball game. I don’t think I had ever heard of the Clippers until then. There are several reasons my heart went for the Clipper, not necessarily in that order.
* KCOP 13’s signal in Granada Hills was way better than KCAL 9.
* Chick Hearn seemed to display early signs of dementia.
* At the time Larry Brown’s Clippers were a lot better and a lot more fun than the Lakers.
* I am a bit of a contrarian.
* The Clippers were the Ultimate Underdogs.
* Ralph Lawler may not be God but he’s probably one His angels.
I did get to see about 20 live games at the Sports Arena including a playoff game against Utah. It was easy and cheap to pick up a ticket from a scalper.
In 2006 I returned to France. I catch a broadcast here and there, basically the dreaded afternoon games, if I don’t have to get up too early the next day. From here your basic game starts at 4am. I guess I could catch a video later, but I must admit to being more and more put off by the commercial breaks.
Anyway, my Peugeot 206 SW proudly harbors a Clippers sticker.
As expected, l’Equipe the French daily paper dedicated to sports, is horribly partial to the Lakers.

By: Robert Flom

Robert Flom — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:06:44 +0000

Interesting. I imagine with cell phones now there are always tons of people at games not paying attention, but up until the late 2000s I can’t imagine getting all that distracted at a game.

By: Robert Flom

Robert Flom — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:05:46 +0000

It’s so wild to me that for older fans, even the very moderate success and fun of the 2000s (Miles, Q, Odom and then Brand, Maggette, Cassell) would have been a big step up.

By: Robert Flom

Robert Flom — Sun, 19 Jul 2020 00:02:11 +0000

Fisher is one of my least favorite NBA players of all time.

By: Jerry Bodine

Jerry Bodine — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 19:30:57 +0000

I grew up a hard core Laker fan after watching Wilt,Jerry W. and company during there 33 game winning streak when I was a young kid. During the Showtime era I went to many Laker games and I was blown away by the fans who were there visiting each other talking, Star Searching, not paying attention to the game until the crowd erupted and they would watch the replay on the big screen. I even saw several people reading the Wall St Journal, instead of watching the most exciting team to ever play in the NBA. It boggled my mind. One day and I forget the year, the HATED Celtics were in town and there was no way I could afford the tickets to watch the Lakers when a friend of mine suggested we go and watch the Celtics play the Clippers. After my initial the CLIPPERS SUCK rant he said we get to see the Celtics and who knows they might lose to the Clippers, wouldn’t that be great. So off I went to my first Clipper game. I was shocked at how cheap EVERYTHING was, tickets, parking, beer. We get to our seats and first thing that surprised me was how empty the Sports Arena was when the Celtics were in town. After the game started my next big surprise was watching all the fans get into the game, nobody was chit-chatting, or star gazing, everybody was watching the game and rooting for there team. The Clippers lost of course but it was a great experience and I never went back to a Laker game, but I was still a hard core Laker fan, but I started to follow the Clips daily in the paper, and watch them the few times they made it on TV, but I was still a Laker fan UNTIL Jerry Buss let Jerry West leave. How could the Lakers do that, Jerry West was our Red Auerbach, he won there first Championship, built a dynasty, and when Shag left I was done with the Lakers. A couple of years later I was rewarded and disappointed as a new Clipper Fan when the upstart Clippers were on a collision course to meet the Arrogant bastards across town in the playoffs. The Fakers Wilt’ed but my Clips won there first ever series and the rest is history. I have been a HARDCORE Clips fan ever since.

By: G RAP OLD SCHOOL LIKE YOUR DAD

G RAP OLD SCHOOL LIKE YOUR DAD — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 21:42:50 +0000

5$ a ticket and upgrading down to the 5th /6th row must have been awesome no matter who the clippers were playing!
Very cool, makes me wish I was 10-12 years older so I could have experienced some of that! Lol
As far as the battered spouse syndrome, I think we can all relate. Your good though because the first step is Acceptanceand the second step is moving forward and having faith in a different future!

By: G RAP OLD SCHOOL LIKE YOUR DAD

G RAP OLD SCHOOL LIKE YOUR DAD — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 21:25:59 +0000

Yeah I was young and didn’t know anything about injuries or Achilles for that matter but looking back at it from I know now , Dominique bounced back a little better then most that have tried to get back to star status after a torn Achilles , which for the time back then is pretty special compared to how far medical/procedures have come over the years.

By: pegitom

pegitom — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 18:45:11 +0000

It was 1983 and I was 12 years old and my parent decided to go to dinner after work and I didn’t want to go in because I was tired or something like that. So I stayed in my Dad’s truck and he only had AM radio, I was flipping through radio stations and I landed on a basketball game and the announcer, who I later found out was Ralph Lawler, is just going crazy because they just pulled off a win. At the time I wasn’t really following sports then so when I went to school the next day I mentioned to my friends that I liked the Clippers. This is in the middle of the Lakers Showtime run, so they all made fun of me for liking a crappy team. I basically started liking the Clippers because they made fun of me. The more they made fun of me, the more I liked the team. At first it was out of spite, then it turned into love. It was made even better when they moved to LA the next year (sorry Bolts aka Adam).

Went to the very first game that they played at the Sports Arena against the Knicks (a win). In high school (mid to late 80’s), I would beg friends to come to games with me, offering to buy their tickets, food, and give them a ride. I remember buying tickets for $5 and moving down to the 5th or 6th row by the end of the first quarter because NO ONE was there. A few times I would sit in my nosebleed seats as the game and the usher would look at me like I was an idiot and they would tell me to get better seats right away. There was a late season game against the Mavericks in ’86 or ’87 where there must have been only 2000 fans there.

Having lived through the absolute debacle of the Sterling era, I’ve become used to disappointment when it comes to being a fan of the Clips. I’ve become accustomed to always waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even though we have the best Owner in sports now, I still wait for something bad to happen. I guess it’s like the battered spouse syndrome. The best way for me to get over it is to attend/watch a few Clippers championship parades =)

By: chogokin

chogokin — Fri, 17 Jul 2020 16:51:38 +0000

In addition to the fanbase, I hated watching a lot of the actual Lakers players too – Kobe, Rick Fox, Derek Fisher, and Shaq all annoyed the hell out of me.