Steve Ballmer may change Los Angeles Clippers team name

With the sale of the Los Angeles Clippers nearly complete, there will be an order of business for Steve Ballmer when it comes to polishing up his new toy. While just the very fact that he’ll be the owner of the team will do a lot to speed up the healing process, the team may need to go to drastic changes to fully cleanse itself from the Donald Sterling era.

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One of the most drastic ways to erase Sterling’s stamp on the team from our minds is to simply chance the name of the Clippers to something else.

Arash Markazi from ESPN Los Angeles is in favor of changing the team name, and he lays some pretty interesting points as to why the team name needs to change.

"The league and the city are long overdue for a fresh start and there’s no better time than now, as they show Sterling the door, to burn the name and image of a franchise Sterling has spent the past three decades both building and tarnishing.A league source said Thursday that changing a team’s name is typically a 22-month process and an exception would have to be made for the Clippers if the new owner wanted to re-brand the team."

First off, it’s unclear if Ballmer even intends on doing this but it’s not a bad idea. Fans will instantly assume that if he’s not moving the team to Seattle that the Sonics name could be moved to Los Angeles, as the name could be representative of LAX, one of the largest airports in the country.

The Sonics name was introduced as a nod to the ST project that Boeing was contracted for in the 1960s but the project never came to fruition. One hang up could be that the city of Seattle has the rights to the Sonics name, likeness and team colors but they gave up their franchise once so the rest might not be that hard to wrestle away from them.

Either way, it seems that a name change could be on the horizon for the Clippers and such a thing is hardly something fans will complain about as it would fully remove the stain of Donald Sterling from out lives.