The Los Angeles Clippers’ stars are gone and so is the shine

Three years ago, the Clippers were Southern California’s shiny new star. Technically, they had been in Southern California since 1978 when they were the San Diego Clippers, but the spring of 2014 was the first time that part of the country fell in love with this previously highly dysfunctional Clippers organization.

The Clippers had won 57 games and the Pacific Division that season. They had star players like point guard Chris Paul and power forward Blake Griffin. The Clippers even had a championship-caliber head coach in Doc Rivers. It seemed that they were ready finally ready to move beyond their turbulent history and become the L.A. basketball team, as the rival Lakers were heading toward an inevitable rebuild.

It all came to a head on April 29, when owner Donald Sterling was banned for life from the NBA by new NBA commissioner Adam Silver, for racist remarks Sterling had made. This came in the midst of the Clippers’ first-round playoff series with the rival Warriors. It was a major distraction for a strong basketball team, but Rivers and histeam carried on with great class.

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The Clippers would defeat Golden State in seven games to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals. The Clippers may have lost in six to the Thunder, but there was a growing belief that they were here to stay as an on-the-rise basketball power.

Word on the street at the time was former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was going to buy the team away from Sterling. In August 2014, Ballmer would throw $2 billion at the troubled basketball franchise and it became his. After what happened with Sterling, having an owner with the vision of turning the Clippers into one of the NBA’s premier organizations made it seem as though they were trending in the right direction for once. Star players. Competent ownership willing to spend money. A coach at the top with the experience to take the team where they needed to go.

However, not even three years have passed since Ballmer bought the team and the organization is back in a state of painful disarray. Paul told Rivers and executive vice president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank that he was not going to re-sign with the team and he was traded to the Houston Rockets. With that deal, the Clippers lost the greatest player in franchise history, one who is still in the prime of his career, for a decent return considering the circumstances. His impeding free agency certainly played a factor in the team’s decision to trade Paul, but his departure could have a ripple effect on the rest of the roster.

With free agency approaching, it is almost certain that shooting guard J.J. Redick has outplayed his value with the Clippers. He’s too expensive as an aging veteran and will likely sign with an Eastern Conference team in need of shooting. Griffin could return, but has garnered interest from teams like the Celtics, the Thunder and the Suns in his own free agency.

Where did it all go wrong for the Clippers? Who is to blame? What lessons can we learn from this good but not great basketball team that just didn’t get over the hump?

Sadly, it didn’t take all that long for the first signs of trouble to arrive. Shortly before Ballmer’s purchase of the team in 2014, Rivers was named president of basketball operations on June 16 in addition to remaining as head coach. Dave Wohl may have been the club’s general manager, but Rivers had the final say on personnel decisions.

Given that Ballmer was a brand new owner, he opted to stay out of team building matters and focused his attention on rebuilding the Clippers brand. The new logo was largely panned, but at least the Clippers finally got a cool mascot in Chuck the Condor. That being said, the NBA world had great respect for Ballmer as a new NBA owner. He was a shining example of what an NBA owner should be, with his energy and eagerness to rebuild the organization from top to bottom.

All the while, the Clippers started to reveal their true nature on the court. This was a feisty, antagonistic group with Rivers barking at officials on the sideline constantly. Paul would reportedly wear out teammates on the court with his overly demanding leadership style. It didn’t help that he was about as chippy with the officials as his head coach. The Clippers quickly became the one team in the NBA every opponent hated to play in 2014-15, both because they were tough to play against and tough to suffer through.

Then it got really weird. Rivers used his power in the front office to trade for his son — failing Pelicans backup point guard Austin Rivers mid-season. The move reeked of nepotism. To that point, Rivers was on track to be a horrendous lottery bust with the Pelicans. His NBA career was close to over before it even began. Rivers did work hard with the Clippers and has successfully turned himself into a solid rotational player on a winning team. However, his personal growth or lack thereof was a major issue.

After Paul’s trade to the Rockets, reports broke that he was frustrated with Doc over the favoritism he showed his son, and his refusal to trade Austin Rivers to the Knicks last season in what seemed like a no-brainer move to acquire Carmelo Anthony.

Few, if any, reserves behind Rivers got better in the last three years for the Clippers. Given that Griffin, Paul and Redick all had injuries to work through, this was a problem for the Clippers. Plus, there was a perception that Rivers was giving his son preferential treatment over his teammates and it’s easy to see how the internal resentment manifested in the way it did.

While it is a team sport and everybody has to take some of the blame for the Clippers’ failed shot at being a title contender, the bulk of it has to fall on Doc Rivers. Ballmer gave the former NBA champion head coach of the Celtics full reign to right this sinking ship. The problem was that he kept hitting icebergs that were mostly below the surface.

Going back to the report from Michael Eaves, trading for his son seems to have lost a lot of the locker room. Family is important, but basketball is a business of winning. Waiting two years too long to move Lawrence Frank from the bench to the war room didn’t help with their problems in talent evaluation. By the time Jerry West was able to sign on with the Clippers, it was too late. The seeds of Rivers’ faulty team building had been sewn.

Paul became the best player in the NBA without a championship this summer, now that the monkey is off Kevin Durant’s back. It’s hard to believe that a little over three years ago the Clippers looked like sympathetic heroes in the midst of the Donald Sterling scandal.

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Now the team has endured three years of slow brand deconstruction. Ballmer has done his part, but losing Paul, Griffin and Redick probably isn’t what he signed up for at a cool $2 billion. Paul has escaped. Griffin and Redick are likely right behind him. What’s next for Doc and the Clippers remains to be seen. But there is no shine left with this organization. The Clippers seemed poised to become the Clippers again.