Long before his lifetime ban in 2014, Donald Sterling nearly got kicked out of the NBA in the 1980’s due to unpaid debts, missed payroll, and overall mismanagement. But how did he even end up with an NBA team in the first place? To answer that, we need to go back to the Buffalo Braves, a playoff-caliber team derailed by arena issues, ownership drama, and a bizarre franchise swap with the Boston Celtics. What followed was a relocation to San Diego, and a chaotic move to L.A. In today’s video, we’ll dive into the wild origin story of the team now known as the Clippers.
Despite playoff appearances three years in a row between 1974 and 1976, the Buffalo Braves struggled off the court due to major issues with their home arena, the Aud. The city-owned venue prioritized the Sabres and Canisius College basketball, both of which consistently drew larger crowds. As a result, the Braves were stuck with poor scheduling and even had to play 16 “home” games in Toronto between 1971 and 1976 to build interest in a non-NBA market. The NBA grew increasingly frustrated, especially since they had to wait for the Sabres’ and Canisius’ schedules before finalizing TV deals or their own games. In response, the league gave Braves owner Paul Snyder a five-year deadline to fix the situation.
By the end of the 1976 season, Snyder was at the end of the five year deadline imposed by the league to get the area situation figured out. He really only had two real options, number #1 he could move and relocate the team to another city, or number #2, sell the team and make it someone else’s problem. A potential third option of building a new arena in Buffalo was never really considered because of how cash strapped the team was at the time, plus Snyder wasn’t very confident in the team’s ability to survive in Buffalo after he quoted saying he didn’t feel the area could support three major sports franchises. In June of 1976, it was reported that Snyder had a handshake deal to move the Braves to Miami to play at the recently built 15,000 seat Hollywood Sportatorium. Basically, Snyder would give Irving Cowan, president of the Diplomat Hotel, the option of buying 100% stock of the team for 6.1 million dollars. But upon hearing the news, the city of Buffalo countered with a $10 million dollar lawsuit seeking damages in the likelihood of the sale. About a month later, the deal fell through and Snyder and the city of Buffalo signed a 15-year lease with the Aud with the stipulation that the lease could be torn up if the team didn’t sell a minimum of 5,000 season tickets in any given year. Understandably for Paul Snyder, the Braves arena dilemma proved to be a major headache and more than he bargained for, so he turned his attention to selling the team. Before the 1976-77 season got underway, Snyder reached a deal with Kentucky Fried Chicken investor, and former Kentucky Colonels owner John Y. Brown Jr., to sell 50 percent of the team while agreeing to later sell the remaining half during that season. Brown then turned around and sold half of the team’s stake to businessman and horse-racing owner Harry T. Mangurian Jr (MAN-GUR-EE-EN.
As all of the ownership changes were going on, head coach Jack Ramsay also parted ways with the Braves before the 1976-77 season. There is some debate as to whether Paul Synder fired Ramsay, or if Ramsay decided to leave on his own after seeing where the direction of the team was heading. In either case, Ramsay left the Braves with his contract not being renewed. And it was a good thing he did, because he then took the head coaching job with the Portland Trail Blazers and ended up winning the championship with the Trail Blazers that season giving them the first and thus far only title in the team’s history. And speaking of the Trail Blazers, prior to that season the ABA and the NBA agreed to merge leagues, and in the subsequent dispersal draft Portland chose future hall of famer Moses Malone first. Portland then immediately traded Malone to the Buffalo Braves in exchange for $350,000 and the first pick in the NBA regular draft. Malone’s tenure in Buffalo would be short lived however, as he only played two games, with a total of six minutes of playing time before he was traded to Houston. This marked the unofficial beginning of the dismantling of the Braves roster by the team’s new owners. Halfway through the season, Braves star and former MVP Bob McAdoo was traded along with Tom McMillen (MAC-MILL-EN) to the New York Knicks. The team would go on to lose 52 games during the 1976-77 season, and 55 games the following season, making them one of the worst teams in the league at that time. The creation of a poor team, and selling off players was all part of a not so thinly veiled attempt to drive people away from attending Braves games. This was due to the previously mentioned stipulation in the lease agreement with the Aud, that if season tickets fell below 5,000 in any given season, the lease could be terminated, and that’s exactly what the new ownership wanted. It was around this time that the owner of the Boston Celtics, Irv Levin (LEV-EN) met with Braves owner John Y. Brown to discuss the potential of an unusual deal between the two teams. Levin, who had a background as a producer in the film industry, had for a long time wanted to move back to Southern California but knew there was no way the NBA would ever allow him to relocate the Celtics. David Stern, who was the then NBA General Council, came up with the idea for the two ownership groups to swap teams. John Y. Brown and Mangurian would get the Celtics, while Levin would get the Braves, and the NBA’s blessing to start the process of relocation. Stern got the idea for the team swap after watching the owners of the Baltimore Colts and Los Angeles Rams swap teams in 1972.
After the 1978 season ended, that summer on July 7, the owners voted 21-1 to allow the Braves to move from Buffalo to San Diego. As part of the team swap, many of the players who played on the Celtics were traded to the Braves, and vice versa. The team would begin play the following season at their new home the San Diego Sports Arena, where the San Diego Rockets used to play before they moved to Houston. The club decided to hold a fan contest to rename the team, and the name “Clippers” was selected in honor of the large sailing ships that often sailed through San Diego’s harbor. The club’s new city and name wouldn’t help the team’s play on the floor very much, as the Clippers finished near the bottom of their division every year throughout the remainder of the 1970’s and 1980’s. In 1981, Irv Levin sold the Clippers for $13.5 million dollars to lawyer and real estate mogul Donald Sterling, which would later be adjusted to 12.5 million. Sterling would continue on as the Clippers owner for the next 33 years, until he was given the distinction of a lifetime ban from the NBA after racist remarks he made surfaced in 2014. Jumping back to the summer of 1982, Sterling tried to force a relocation of the Clippers to Los Angeles, which triggered an investigation into Sterling’s business practices as owner of the team. Later, an NBA committee found that he was late paying his players and owed money to creditors. The committee actually recommended that Sterling’s ownership be revoked, but David Stern once again stepped in and convinced Sterling to hand over team operations to the Lakers former legal counsel Alan Rothenberg, while Sterling could continue on as the primary owner.
Inspired by Al Davis moving the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles in defiance of the NFL, Sterling, (seen here exclaiming that nothing could possibly go wrong from this point forward) decided to attempt moving the Clippers to LA again in 1984. The league hit back at Sterling, fining him $25 million dollars and demanding the Clippers be returned to San Diego or they’d dissolve the franchise. Sterling responded by suing the NBA for $100 million dollars in an antitrust lawsuit. Thanks to a court ruling against the NFL, allowing Al Davis to officially move his team to LA, it became clear that the NBA would fall to a similar fate in the case against Sterling. The now newly elected NBA commissioner David Stern, realizing that this was a problem that he himself helped create, then opened negotiations with Sterling. The league agreed to reduce the fine to $6 million while also allowing the team to remain in Los Angeles, but only if Sterling dropped the antitrust lawsuit (which he ultimately did).
Even with the Clippers firmly in place in Los Angeles, the league still wanted to have a presence in the Buffalo area. Throughout the late 1980’s and 1990’s the NBA held regular exhibition games at the Aud, featuring some of the league’s most popular teams like the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, and Boston Celtics. Basketball has always had a strong history in Buffalo and has remained very popular for what’s today considered a “Hockey Town”. While it’s unlikely that the NBA would expand to Buffalo anytime soon, with other cities like Seattle and Las Vegas being the obvious front runners, there’s always the possibility that the league could some day return to the city. Meanwhile, the LA Clippers continue to carry the legacy of the Buffalo Braves. While the memories of their time in Buffalo and San Diego may have faded over the years, the team’s journey from Western New York to California remains an important part of their history, serving as a testament to the enduring resilience of the franchise.
In 2024, StadiumTalk ranked the worst sports owners of all-time and no surprise Donald Sterling took the number one spot as the worst ever owner of any team. He beat out other infamous former owners such as Marge Schott (SHOT) (of the Cincinnati Reds), Robert Sarver (of the Phoenix Suns), and Dan Synder (of the Washington Commanders). Do you agree that Donald Sterling is the worst owner of all time? Or should he be ranked lower on this list? Let me know in the comments below!
If you enjoyed this post, check out my article on the full history of the Buffalo Braves franchise. Where I go deeper into the rise, fall, and relocation of the team that once called Buffalo home. As always please like and subscribe if you haven’t already, and thanks for reading!
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