I don’t root passionately for any NBA team. I’m a Buffaloian
and well, Buffalo
doesn’t have a team… at least not anymore. For only 8 years in the 1970’s the
Buffalo Braves dazzled and disappointed the crowds at Memorial Auditorium. In the
8 years spent here there was plenty of dazzle and unfortunately also plenty of
disappointment. In a brief recap; the first three years were typical expansion
team growing pains while the next 3 were fun, as the young team was finding
its’ way and beginning to blossom with one of the best players in the NBA at
the time, Bob McAdoo, leading the way. Unfortunately something ugly and
horrible happened during the last few years robbing Buffalo of it’s basketball team and me of
the team I would have unquestionably rooted for when I was old enough.
Without a team or rooting interest, basketball was the last
major sport I cared about. I became a football fan as soon as I saw it on
television. The game looked larger than life. My first memories as a football
fan are of watching Bills fans tearing down the goalposts in 1980 after beating
Miami for the
first time since the 60’s. I remember Bill Simpson’s late interception sealing
the first Bills playoff game I ever watched in 81. I can still close my eyes
and see images of Gilbert Perreault and Phil Housley dashing up the ice for the
Sabres in the early 80’s and the Yankees losing in the World Series to the
Dodgers in 1981. Little did I know they wouldn’t be back for 15 years.
When I did stumble into basketball in the mid 80’s I rooted
for the Celtics. I think my first basketball memories might be seeing
highlights from the 1984 finals between the Celtics and Lakers. Boston intrigued me. I
liked that they won with a bunch of overachieving un-athletic players. Their
best 3 guys; Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish were not exceptionally
fast, could not jump well and didn’t possess the kind of athletic ability you’d
expect to see in star basketball players. But boy were they smart. They were
technically sound and more than that they were savvy. McHale had the best post
moves I’d ever seen, Parish would quietly produce game in and game out and Bird
in his own way had some flair with his deft passing and ability to score with
either hand. Their desire to win against more athletic and flashier teams impressed
me and I rooted for them often but it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t like they were
MY team so while I’d want them to win it wasn’t so traumatic when they didn’t.
I had what you might call a casual interest.
As I got older I continued to root for the Celtics and even
the Knicks during the 90’s because Knicks games were on television all the time
and I got to know that team well. Now Celtics fans and Knicks fans aren’t
exactly chums so to root for both illustrated how in search of a team I was and
how emotionally invested I wasn’t. To give you a comparison that would be like
rooting for the Sabres and the Leafs! Inconceivable!
All these years have passed and I still don’t really root
for any one NBA team with the passion I do the Bills, Sabres and Yankees. I
need a basketball team. About 5-6 years back when I started to research the
Buffalo Braves I tried to become a Clippers fan… I mean, they ARE the Braves. I
tried but it was too hard. Los Angeles is so far
away from Buffalo,
both literally and stylistically. Plus there are the circumstances of why the
Braves left which make it hard for me to embrace the Clippers. Their existence
is evil!
See you can’t really understand my feelings on the matter
until you understand the history at work here, the history behind the Clippers
Curse and the resentment. I want to like the Clippers but their existence, out
on the west coast should not be and Buffalo and its’ innocent fans are/were the
victims. How could I root for them? It makes me wonder if the Bills ever leave
whether I could still root for the L.A. Bills or Toronto Bills. Now I don’t
have the same deep, loyal allegiance to the Braves as I do the Bills, or the
Sabres for that matter, built over a lifetime of being in a relationship with
them and I was too young to know or remember what happened to the Braves exactly so research
and several sources will help me tell the story.
The Braves began in 1970 as an NBA expansion team and for
the first three years they stunk. This tends to happens when you start a team
from scratch. You have to assemble the parts; good young players taken with
high draft picks combined with useful veterans to help the team grow acquired
through trades and free agent signings. Ideally you find a young cornerstone to
build a team around and the Braves were lucky enough to get one in Bob McAdoo. The
future NBA Hall of Famer was the Braves 1st round pick in 1972 and
immediately made an impact. In just his 2nd year during the 1973-74 season
he led the Braves to their 1st ever playoff appearance and went to
his 1st All Star game while putting up averages of 30 points and 15
rebounds a game. No one has done that since. The next year he was even better,
winning league MVP (the only one in Braves/Clippers history) and leading the
Braves to the playoffs again. McAdoo was the best of a new breed. He was a big
man who could run the floor and stroke the mid-range jumper. Centers normally
did all their damage in the paint but McAdoo was a pure scorer who could hurt
you all over the court. For those of you who need a contemporary comparison
think Dirk Nowitzki, with a tiny bit less shooting range but more physical and
a better rebounder. With an improving supporting cast the Braves gave the eventual
Champion Boston Celtics all they could handle in the 2nd round of
the 1976 playoffs before losing out in 6 games. With one of the best players in
all of basketball and 3 straight playoff appearances, the Braves looked ready
to make the next step towards potentially winning the NBA championship but
behind the scenes something terrible was happening.
It started with the Braves’ original owner Paul Snyder.
Snyder was an area businessman who is responsible for Darien Lake
among other things. He bought into the NBA the same time the Knoxes bought into
the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres. Both teams shared the Aud and there was room
for both however their management styles were very different. While the Knox
family embraced the young core of the Sabres along with the fanbase, Snyder’s
impatience was well known. The Braves featured a carousel of coaches and
supporting players around Bob McAdoo. Finally, Snyder wanted out of the
basketball game and tried to sell the Braves right after their 3rd
straight playoff appearance in June 1976 to a rich couple that would move the
team to Hollywood, Florida. Talk about taking the money and
running!
Before it was finalized the city of Buffalo filed a damage suit and stopped the
sale. After it fell through the team and city signed a new 15 year lease. Things
seemed to be all better but there was a provision in the new lease which gave
the team the right to break it if season ticket sales fell below 5,000. The
team averaged 12,000 fans a game so this number didn’t seem likely to be a
problem but Snyder still wanted out.
Later in the summer of 76 he sold 50% of the team to a man
named John Y. Brown. Brown was from Kentucky
and owned the ABA team The Kentucky Colonels before they folded during the NBA-ABA
merger in the summer of 1976... around the same time Snyder’s previous sale
fell through. The NBA absorbed 4 of the 6 remaining teams left in the ABA but the Colonels and
the Spirits of St. Louis were forcibly folded. Brown was paid 3 million by the
league plus nearly 2 million more for the rights to his best players from NBA
teams for his trouble. He used that money to buy the share in the Braves.
Snyder included a provision in the sale. If Brown sold the rights to any
players on the Braves it would count against the purchase price. Essentially,
if he sold some of the players on the team and got a good financial return on
them, his purchase of the Braves could be for very little or for next to
nothing.
Before the 1976-77 season was half over the team sold a 21-year
old Moses Malone to Houston after a whopping 2
game career in Buffalo.
Yep, they gave up on him after 2 games. By the way, Malone would go on to be a
Hall of Famer and one of the greatest to ever play the game. Shortly after, the
Braves biggest star Bob McAdoo was sold to the New York Knicks for 3 million
and a journeyman player who was gone within a year. Can you imagine trading
away a 25-year old NBA MVP just entering his prime and not because of
ridiculous contract demands or because he demanded it, simply because you are
trying to save some money. The trade was lopsided in the Knicks’ favor and
reeked of something else going on. McAdoo’s presence alone brought people down
to the Aud to watch the Braves so to sell him off seemed to hurt the franchise
more than help the pocketbooks of an already rich new owner. There was indeed something
else at work here, something evil.
One of the most famous sports movies of all time is the late
80’s baseball film Major League. In this film, the long-time owner of the
hapless Cleveland Indians dies leaving the team to his gold-digging ex-showgirl
wife who absolutely hates Cleveland.
So she conspires to get rid of every good player and put together a team of
stiffs that would play so badly that attendance would drop below a threshold
allowing her to break her lease with the city of Cleveland and enabling her to
move the team to Miami trading the history of the team and it’s relationship
with Cleveland for better weather and selfish perks like free membership in prestigious social clubs. Does any of this sound familiar? Of course in the film it
backfired but in Buffalo, New York in 1978 this very thing
occurred.
Sometime during the 1976-77 season John Y. Brown bought the
other 50% of the team from Snyder and obtained full ownership. Being a rich Kentucky businessman did nothing to endear him to the lunch
pail, blue collar Buffalo
fans and the feeling was mutual. Brown almost immediately sought to move the
team from the second he bought it. Brown’s real dream was to own the
prestigious history-laden Boston
Celtics franchise but unfortunately they weren’t for sale in 1976.
During the next season the then Celtics owner Irv Levin, a
movie producer, wanted to move the Celtics to California. However he could not get league
approval since the Celtics were one of the cornerstones and signature
franchises of the league. With the attendance for what was left of the Braves
falling below the threshold to break its lease with Buffalo, a compromise was offered by an NBA
lawyer named David Stern. John Brown and Irv Levin could swap franchises. Brown
could own the team he’s always wanted to own and Levin could take over the
Braves and move them to San Diego,
California. Everybody is happy!
Unless of course you count Buffalo
basketball fans.
Basically all the rich guys would get what they want and
screw Buffalo.
But wait there’s more! Along with the franchise swap, the two teams made a
complicated 7 player trade with 3 players going to Boston
and 4 going to Buffalo.
Don’t worry, Buffalo or should I now say San Diego didn’t get
anyone good. With the unbalanced swap of franchises (the Celtics being worth
far more than the Braves) the Braves had their choice of Boston’s first round picks. They could demand
their 6th overall pick or the 8th overall. Of course the
Braves took the lesser pick, the 8th who turned out to be Freeman
Williams who lasted about 4 seasons in the league before departing to be the rapper
and frontman for the C & C Music Factory. The other pick, the 6th
which Boston
got to keep turned out to be a young player named Larry Bird.
In the early 80’s when that same NBA lawyer David Stern
became commissioner of the league (and is to this day) the NBA changed the
rules on collusion so that no owners could ever conspire again to do the tank
and swap they did in 1978. How convenient.
The new San Diego Clippers began the first of 33 mostly
terrible years on the west coast where they’ve had barely more many playoff
appearances (four) in those 33 seasons then they had in the 8 years in Buffalo (three). Some say
that the franchise is cursed. The truth is weird things have happened there. Draft
picks went bust; good players would go there and promptly blow out their knees
or have down years. The Clippers would give away great players in foolish
trades. They often made boneheaded decisions drafting forgettable players ahead
of future Hall of Famers. They traded for guys who were past their primes
and those younger promising players they did get either suffered awful injuries
or simply departed the franchise for more money or the chance to be more
competitive elsewhere. The Clippers could do little right. Moving from San Diego to Los
Angeles would do nothing to reverse their fortunes.
Even when Irv Levin sold the Clippers in 1981 to Donald Sterling, things did
not improve as Sterling has earned the reputation as one of the league’s worst
owners during these past 30 years, accused of being cheap, racist, sexist and
last year he even sat in the stands and heckled some of his own players because
they weren’t performing to his expectations.
When current can’t miss star Blake Griffin was drafted by
the Clippers in 2009, he promptly blew out his knee before his first season
even started and missed the whole year. When he came back last season to be
every bit the star he was predicted to be, I wondered or more like worried when
he’d be struck by lightening. I always liked Blake Griffin in college and love
him in the pros and last year I flirted with the idea of trying to root for the
Clippers again.
This year a friend of mine was talking with me about letting
things go and not holding grudges… even the sports related kind. So with those
new lessons in mind and using rational thinking maybe I am finally ready to
embrace the Clippers. Honestly, no one who was part of the Braves debacle is
still there from the previous owners Snyder, Brown and Levin on down and just
about every player currently on the team wasn’t even born when it happened. I
couldn’t blame anyone there for what happened long ago and it was time to move
on, right? Although I was close I was still on the fence. I wanted to do it. I
weighed the pros and cons but I still couldn’t make up my mind.
Now I mentioned how I like Blake Griffin. He’s a hard
working, dynamic player. The kind of player I always hoped Shawn Kemp would
have been back in the day. You know the type; awesome athletic ability but a
good work ethic as well. Kemp was lazy, ate his way out of the league and
squandered his gifts. Griffin
is the opposite of Kemp in that regard. He’s probably one of my 5 favorite
players in the league along with Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant, Steve Nash and
Chris Paul. Oh, did I forget to mention Chris Paul now plays for the Clippers
too? That might have tipped the scales for me.
When the whole Chris Paul thing went down a few weeks ago I
was elated he went to the Clippers. Since New
Orleans “had” to trade him and the Lakers were the
first up and most aggressive trying to get him I thought along with a lot of
people he’d end up there… one of my favorite players on one of my least
favorite teams. But when the league stopped a perfectly fair deal between New Orleans, Houston
and the Lakers I started to wonder what was going on. It wasn’t like Chris Paul
was being traded for a journeyman and a few million bucks.
When the Clippers finally snuck in and stole Paul away from the
Lakers with a comparable but not much better deal I wondered if something else
really was at work here. Perhaps the basketball gods came to collect on Commissioner
Stern. Or maybe Stern has had some Scrooge like holiday season epiphany and
sees the errors of his ways after a night with the spirits of basketball past,
present and basketball yet to come. While David Stern didn’t sell the Braves
and move them out of town, he certainly had a whole lot to do with it and several
thousand fans and the basketball gods have not forgotten.
While he has had a mostly solid run as NBA Commissioner the
Clippers have been a wreck. Perhaps denying the Lakers more riches and giving
Chris Paul to the Clippers is in some way Stern paying his penance. Maybe the
curse will end. This summer if the Clippers are hoisting up the championship
trophy we’ll know the gods are appeased and the curse has been lifted. If not,
we’ll still understand that some good karma for Stern and the Clippers is a
nice start to lifting the great Braves Curse. While it’s too early to know if
the curse is over it isn’t too early to jump on the bandwagon of my rightful
team. So I root for the Clippers now, except you’ll have to forgive me when I
still call them the Braves.
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