(Wikipedia)  The Los Angeles Clippersare a professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California, United States. They play in the National Basketball Association (NBA) and are a member of the NBA Western Conference's Pacific Division. The club's home:replace: games are played at the Staples Center, an arena that it shares with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Sparks, and the Los Angeles Kings. The team has only six winning seasons in its entire history, and only two since moving to Los Angeles.

The Clippers began in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves. It was one of three franchises that joined the NBA in the 1970–71 season; the others were the Portland Trail Blazers and Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Braves played its home games at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, sharing the arena with another new franchise, the Buffalo Sabres of the National Hockey League, which also debuted in 1970. The team's first head coach was Hall of Famer Dolph Schayes and the franchise's first star players were Bob Kauffman and Don May, who were acquired in the 1970 NBA Expansion Draft. However, in the NBA Draft of 1970, Buffalo passed on hometown hero Calvin Murphy, a 5 foot 9 point guard from Niagara University. Murphy would eventually be inducted into the Hall Of Fame. As typical of first-year expansion teams, the Braves finished with a dismal record, going 22–60, seven games ahead of expansion-mate Cleveland, which finished its season at 15–67. Kauffman, who averaged 4.3 points per game the previous year with the Chicago Bulls, led Buffalo in scoring with 20.4 points per game and earned a spot on the 1971 NBA Eastern Conference All-Star team.

The Braves repeated its 22–60 record in the following 1971–72 season, but did make good acquisitions that would make the club better. Buffalo drafted center Elmore Smith from Kentucky State University, and local favorite Randy Smith, from Buffalo State College. Schayes was replaced one game into th......Full Article