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| Hoops at "The Ponda" |
The Maloof family will, beyond any doubt, move the NBA's Sacramento Kings to "The Ponda" (left) in Anaheim, California to become the Anaheim Royals during the coming off-season. Various sports web sites are reporting that some people, from ordinary fans to Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, feel that there is no way that Southern California can support three NBA teams. Personally, I have doubts about that, but that scenario is certainly within the realm of possibility.
Regardless, I predict that in the future, the soon-to-be Anaheim Royals will eventually overtake the Los Angeles Clippers as the number two basketball attraction in southern California. The Royals will siphon away a significant amount of ticket sales, attendance, corporate sponsorship money, and media attention from the Clippers, who will remain cellar-dwellers and the laughingstock of professional sports so long as Donald (Tokowitz) Sterling owns the team.
The Clippers serve solely as Sterling's cash cow and an ego-stroker for himself, allowing him to indulge in the glamour and cachet of being a sports team owner without having any compelling interest in pouring money into the team to the extent that the Clippers could be playoff contenders.
Why? The answer is simple: Doing so would be a potential financial risk to him, and he obviously feels no need to spill more money when his existing business model is bringing in far more cash than he's spending.
FOOT-IN-MOUTH DISEASE
Money is Sterling's God, pure and simple. The Clippers' income sustains the over-the-top lifestyle Sterling has enjoyed for a quarter-century. As a result, Sterling himself has many image problems, has been quoted as making quite a few racist comments, exercised discriminatory housing practices in the apartment buildings he owns, and has been sued on several occasions for sexual harassment.
And when the Clippers' then-head coach Kim Hughes was stricken with prostate cancer, Sterling refused to help with the bill -- even though Sterling could have paid for the whole thing and not suffered any significant financial impact. As it later turned out, several Clippers players quietly paid the bills for Hughes' treatment.
E-"CLIP"-SED
It seems to me that Sterling must an embarrassment to other owners of professional sports franchises. So, if the potential loss of ticket and sponsorship revenue causes Sterling to be squeezed financially, the NBA (which itself has had many image problems over the years) and commissioner David Stern could pressure Sterling into selling the team, if for no other reason than that the Clippers could rise above being the laughingstock of professional sports.
When (not if) that happens, the new owner(s) may commit to improving the team and could conceivably stay in Staples Center, or if new ownership is from another market, the Clippers will eventually move into a city where they will have far more ticket sales, attendance, corporate sponsorship, media attention, and flat-out relevance.
The most likely eventual destinations for the Clippers could be a possible new arena in Las Vegas, the relatively new Sprint Center in downtown Kansas City, or the new and horrifically-named "KFC Yum! Center" in Louisville.
Ask no questions about Seattle, which couldn't even keep the 1979 NBA champion SuperSonics in town. Ask no questions about Vancouver, where basketball was a colossal failure in a new building. Likewise, Cincinnati would need a new arena; USBank Arena dates to 1975 and is nowhere near as up-to-date as the arena the Seattle SuperSonics fled. Pittsburgh has become a serious hockey town over the last 44 years; a relocated Clippers team might be nothing more than a second fiddle there. Similarly, Scottrade Center in Saint Louis, Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, and The Last Bank Left Standing In Western Upstate New York Bank Arena in Buffalo also seem like long-shots.
Whether or not the Clippers move from Staples Center, I see this inevitable move of the Kings to Anaheim as being the first big step in ridding the NBA of Donald Sterling and, consequently, making the Clippers / (insert new team name) relevant again.
BRAND-NEW
It will be interesting to see how the branding works out for the soon-to-be-erstwhile Sacramento Kings. The team name "Royals" would be a return to the franchise's original name, dating to its first two cities, Rochester NY and Cincinnati. Given that "throw-back" uniforms are in vogue, the Maloof family and their marketing staff have the opportunity to revive a bit of NBA history here.
In contrast, the name "Clippers" is now and forever stained by Donald Sterling's greed, insufferable ownership, distasteful lifestyle, and the resulting on-court ineptitude. If the Clippers depart Staples Center, a new name is absolutely guaranteed. For the sake of current and future Clippers players... the sooner, the better.
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