It is not uncommon for two teams to use the same stadium as their home. Such cases can often be found in football, with Inter Milan and AC Milan, the rival structures representing Italian football, using Stadio Giuseppe Mezzarle, and Lazio and AS Roma sharing Stadio Olimpico as their home stadiums. However, in the NBA, home games between two teams are held in only one location. It is the Crypto.com Arena, home of the Lakers and Clippers. This time, let’s look at the rivalry between the Lakers and Clippers, who have formed a rivalry under one roof.
See you in LA
Both teams have been living together in LA since 1984. It’s already been 39 years. However, not all of the franchise’s histories were made in LA. Both the Lakers and the Clippers initially established their hometowns in other regions and then settled in Los Angeles by moving their hometowns.
Of the two, the first team to set foot in LA was the Lakers. Founded in 1947 in Minneapolis, where the Minnesota Timberwolves are currently home, the Lakers joined the NBA in 1948 and continued the tradition together from the league’s inception. With the greatest star of the day, George Maikan, they won the championship five times in six years from 1949 to 1954, quickly strengthening their image as a strong team.
Even after moving to Los Angeles in 1960, the Lakers had countless brilliant moments. In the 1960s, legendary players such as Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain played an active role wearing purple & gold uniforms, and in the 1970s, the player who scored the most points in NBA history until LeBron James broke the record not long ago, was the ‘Captain’. ’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar appeared.
The Clippers are a much shorter team than the Lakers. Founded in 1970 under the name Buffalo Braves, they moved to San Diego in 1978. Clipper) and changed the name of the club to the San Diego Clippers. Then, six years after setting up a new site in San Diego, they moved to LA again, and this time, the two clubs, the Lakers and the Clippers, finally met in LA, opening the LA Clippers era by keeping the name of the club they were using.
One thing to note here is that the two teams didn’t use the same stadium as their home when they met in LA. Originally, each team had a separate home stadium, but in 1999, when they entered the newly built Staples Center (the former name of Crypto.com Arena) at the same time, they shared the home stadium from then on.
Pattern-only rivals
In fact, there is one precondition that must be followed for a rival match to flourish. It is a fierce and fun match between the two teams. Matches between the two teams, where one-sided trends often occur or where the results are already drawn in your head before you even open the lid, are neither fun nor impressive, so it cannot be called a rivalry worthy of headlines. Therefore, a one-sided rivalry is difficult to gain much popularity even if it is based in the same area.
The relationship between the Lakers and Clippers has been like that for quite some time. The difference in level was so great that it was embarrassing to even put them together on a scale to compare which one was stronger.
Even in 1984, when coexistence began in LA, the status of the two teams was the difference between heaven and earth. The Lakers, who settled in LA 24 years earlier and won 14 championships under the name of the LA Lakers, were the sky, and the Clippers, who had only three playoff experiences from their founding in 1970 until the 1983-1984 season, were the land, no. did
The difference between the two teams was also evident. Even before the Clippers settled in LA, the Lakers, who had a record of 46 wins and 20 losses, started the LA Derby with nine straight wins from the game held on November 25, 1984. The Lakers’ first loss to the Los Angeles Clippers was on January 25, 1986, 14 months after the first match between the two teams in Los Angeles.
Even after that, the Lakers consistently showed off their strong side against the Clippers. In particular, from April 19, 1997 to December 31, 2000, they had 16 consecutive wins. On the other hand, the Clippers’ first consecutive win against the Lakers did not come until the 1992-1993 season. The picture of the Lakers overwhelming the Clippers continued until the 2010-2011 season, just before the winds of new change began to blow in earnest in the Clippers. For about 27 years, from November 25, 1984 to March 26, 2011, the two teams had a record of 95 wins and 28 losses. The Lakers recorded a whopping 77.2% win rate.
Even in the all-stars produced by the two teams, there is a big gap. First of all, the Lakers, a star corps representing the league, were evenly distributed with players who stepped on the All-Star stage from the 1980s to the 2000s. Starting with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Pau Gasol have consistently stamped their attendance at the All-Star Game. In particular, in the 1997-1998 season, they produced four All-Stars at once, including Kobe and O’Neal, Eddie Jones, and Nick Van Excel.
If the Lakers rejoiced over a good harvest, the Clippers wept over successive droughts and poor harvests. In the 1984-1985 season and 1985-1986 season, right after opening a new nest in LA, Norm Nixon and Marquis Johnson were selected as All-Stars, respectively, but after that, Danny Manning in the early 1990s, Elton Brand in the early 2000s, and Chris Kamen in the late 2000s It was so rare that there were only a handful of players who were selected as All-Stars.
The difference between the stars representing the team naturally led to the difference in playoff performance. The Lakers continued their glory days after the Clippers moved to Los Angeles. Abdul-Jabbar and the Magic won three championships together in 1985, 1987 and 1988, and the 2000-2002 three-peat was led by Black Mamba and Shark. Always thirsty for success, Kobe lifted trophies in 2009 and 2010 with a new partner named Gasol.
On the other hand, the Clippers didn’t make the playoffs very often. They made the playoff stage in 1992, 1993, and 1997, but all were eliminated in the first round and packed up. He suffered the fate of being eliminated because he could not cross the stronghold. That’s all the Clippers did in the playoffs from the 1980s to the 2000s. That’s how the Clippers walked in place without continuing to develop without excavating a trustworthy franchise star or taking off their weak image.
David’s evolution, Goliath’s downfall
However, as there is no eternal night, the sunlight is starting to shine on the Clippers little by little. It started with the 2009 rookie draft.
Blake Griffin, who was nominated at the time, did not debut immediately due to a knee injury suffered in the preseason, but after rehabilitation, from the 2010-2011 season, which was his debut season, he stood tall as a new franchise star, exuding a presence he had never seen before with his monstrous athletic ability. To give proper momentum to his growth, he made a bold investment ahead of the 2011-2012 season and traded Chris Paul, one of the league’s best point guards, to form a new core responsible for the team’s future. It was the launch of the famous ‘Rob City’, which is well known by its familiar nickname to us.
Centered on Paul and Griffin, the Clippers joined the ranks of the strong teams faster than expected. With the help of invaluable resources like DeAndre Jordan and Matt Barnes, Jamal Crawford and JJ Reddick, the Clippers have made the playoffs every six seasons with Paul. They were eliminated in the first round three times and in the second round three times, and although they did not rise above the conference finals, they succeeded in clearly removing the tag of the weak team they had been following for a long time.
Coincidentally, at the same time, the Lakers had to go through the worst dark period they had ever experienced. Perhaps because of the sunlight that fell on the Clippers, the shadows covering the Lakers looked particularly dark.
After the retirement of head coach Phil Jackson and the transfer of Lamar Odom, they succeeded in advancing to the playoffs in the 2011-2012 season, but in the second round, the Lakers knelt in Oklahoma City, where the triangular formation of Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook-James Harden endured. Ahead of the 2008 season, he tried to restore his honor by recruiting Steve Nash and Dwight Howard, but at the end of the regular season, Kobe hit a reef with an Achilles tendon injury and lost his strength, so he was swept by San Antonio in the playoffs and returned home helplessly.
Even after that, the Lakers’ plan continued to twist. In the 2013-2014 season, Kobe suffered a knee injury six games after returning from lengthy rehabilitation and was out for the season, and the Lakers failed to make the playoffs for the first time in nine years since 2005. Although he overcame two long-term injuries and returned to the court in good health, Kobe, whose career had already entered its twilight, was not as powerful as before, ending his career as a player. It fell endlessly like that. They tried to rebuild by transfusing promising players such as Julius Randle, D’Angelo Russell, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, and Kyle Kuzma, but even this was not enough.
The positions of the two teams were completely reversed in their opponents. Remember the Lakers’ 16-game winning streak over the Clippers earlier? When the situation of the two teams was reversed, the double-digit winning streak was up to the Clippers. Starting with a 36-point win of 123-87 on January 11, 2014, they ran 11 consecutive wins until their confrontation on April 7, 2016. Including this, the Clippers overwhelmed the Lakers with 17 wins and 3 losses from the 2013-2014 season to the 2017-2018 season.
Two teams, one goal
Of course, the Lakers weren’t just watching things get worse. The Lakers, a big market club representing the league, do not have tanking in advance, so a new captain was needed to fill Kobe’s vacancy. After much consideration, the player they chose was LeBron James, who was the face of the league and had a special relationship with Kobe.
However, Lebron was not a player who could relive the glory days alone, so he needed a helper to support him, just as Kobe had Shaquille O’Neal and Pau Gasol. At this time, the resource chosen was Anthony Davis, a seagull who was thirsty for victory. The Lakers, who completed a new one-two punch by investing in a large number of promising players, eventually lifted the championship trophy in the bubble in 2020, the year Kobe passed away. It was the revival of a famous family.
The Clippers also have a similar story to the Lakers.
After Chris Paul and Blake Griffin left for Houston and Detroit through trades a year apart, respectively, the Clippers, who maintained mid-level power by retooling, followed by recruiting Kawhi Leonard, who won the championship in Toronto in 2019, from the free agent market. Even Paul George, who was one of the league’s best offensive and defensive players, formed a duo to open a new era like the Lakers. Since both Leonard and George were players who could demonstrate great energy not only in offense but also in defense, prospects were pouring in that synergy would be enormous.
However, the Clippers have yet to achieve their goal of winning. The first playoff in the 2020 bubble, in which Leonard and George played together, left only regrets in the second round of Denver’s wall, which Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray endured, and in the 2021 playoff, Paul George played a big role, but Leonard broke his knee Due to repeated appearances and absences due to injuries, it was not a complete team, so I had to give Phoenix a ticket to the finals at the conference finals stage, which was the first time since the foundation. Last season, when Leonard missed the entire season due to rehab, he missed the playoffs by Minnesota and New Orleans in the play-in tournament.
In this way, the Lakers and Clippers have become the leaders of the Western Conference, running forward with one goal of winning every season.메이저놀이터 Again this season, both teams are doing their best every game to survive on the rough Western Conference table.
Apart from this, the recent head-to-head trend is tightly held by the Clippers. Since the 2020-2021 season, they have won 11 straight wins against the Lakers, and since the 2011-2012 season, they have an overwhelming advantage of 36 wins and 9 losses. In particular, if the Clippers win in the last match of this regular season, which will be held on April 6, the Lakers win streak will be rewritten. However, there is one thing that is definitely different from the past days when the food chain relationship was clear. Both teams deserve to be called strong teams, so now the LA derby is a pretty exciting match any time.