NBA Free Agency 2017: 5 reasons the Los Angeles Clippers need to blow it up
By John Buhler
4. It’s time for Steve Ballmer to leave his mark on the franchise
During the 2014 NBA Playoffs, most of America felt horrible for the Clippers. Los Angeles had to deal with the bitter pill of Donald Sterling’s ownership of the team. His racist remarks were actively undermining what was then a promising basketball team.
Los Angeles would beat the division rival Golden State Warriors in their first-round series, but would fall in the Western Conference Semifinals to the Oklahoma City Thunder in six games. That offseason, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer would buy the NBA franchise for $2 billion.
Knowing that he had just purchased an NBA team that had serious championship aspirations, Ballmer opted to take a more hands-off approach to running his team. He has spent the last three seasons learning the ropes of what it means to be an NBA owner. Ballmer may have changed the Clippers uniform and brought in Chuck the Condor, but he has largely stayed out of basketball operations.
Handing the reigns to Rivers as team president has not been a wise one. Los Angeles hasn’t gotten any better with Rivers calling the shots in the front office. Ballmer has shown a great deal of patience. Because of this, he has made the Clippers organization one that top people in the basketball industry will want to potentially be a part of. Ballmer has every right to march into Rivers office, and either fire him or force a massive overhaul to basketball operations. Whatever is going on now is clearly not working.