There’s been a lot of back and forth between the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers over the past five years or so.
While the purple and gold hasn’t been as dominant as they used to be earlier on their story, the Clippers have risen as one of the strongest and perennial candidates out of the Western Conference.
But now that the Lakers are back in track and the Clippers paired Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, there’s been a bit of a narrative about a rivalry for the supremacy of the city. However, Lakers’ owner Jeanie Buss thinks otherwise, as she claims such rivalry just doesn’t exist given their lack of playoff history:
“You can’t build a rivalry until there is a rivalry. I mean that in terms of we’ve never played them in the playoffs. Whereas with Boston, we can go back and go, ‘Remember when this happened? Remember when that happened?’ All of our playoff experience against Boston, that’s a rivalry because you have a history. We just haven’t had a history with the Clippers in the playoffs,” Buss told Sports Illustrated.
While some Clippers fans may think Buss’ comments are kind of petty, she’s actually got a valid point. Truth to be told, the Clippers are far from being a winning franchise throughout their history, although they’ve done an outstanding effort building a new, stronger culture under Steve Ballmer’s administration.
The Lakers have plenty of playoff history with the Boston Celtics, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, and even Phoenix Suns; but other than those recent matchups between LeBron James and Kawhi, there aren’t many memorable things you could say about the Lakers-Clippers rivalry.
Still, considering how both teams are built to compete for a very long time and the fact that they’re likely going to face off in the playoffs this season, we could be watching a modern and exciting rivalry in the making, for sure.
