Los Angeles Clippers

The Los Angeles Clippers are professional basketball's greatest test of faith - a franchise that has asked its fans to believe through decades of ineptitude, mismanagement, and the indignity of playing second fiddle in their own city. Born as the Buffalo Braves in 1970, the team moved to San Diego in 1978 and then to Los Angeles in 1984, where they immediately became the NBA's version of a tenant living in someone else's mansion. The Lakers owned Los Angeles basketball, and the Clippers, under the notoriously cheap ownership of Donald Sterling, became a punchline - a franchise defined by losing seasons, empty seats, and the persistent feeling that they were the JV team sharing the varsity's gym.

The Lob City era changed the perception, if not the results. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan turned the Clippers into one of the most entertaining teams in basketball from 2011 to 2017, throwing alley-oops that shook the rim and playing a brand of basketball that was spectacularly exciting. But Lob City could never break through in the playoffs, and a series of gut-wrenching collapses - including the infamous 3-1 lead blown against the Rockets in 2015 - added new chapters to the franchise's book of heartbreak. Still, those teams proved that the Clippers could be culturally relevant in Los Angeles, that there was room for two basketball teams in the second-largest city in America.

Steve Ballmer's purchase of the team in 2014 - for a then-record two billion dollars - signaled a new era of ambition and resources. The construction of the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, the Clippers' first-ever arena of their own, represents the franchise's most significant step toward establishing an independent identity. Kawhi Leonard's acquisition in 2019 was supposed to deliver the championship breakthrough, but injuries have repeatedly intervened. The Clippers remain a franchise in pursuit of its first title, still writing its origin story. In a city that worships winners, the Clippers' persistence in the face of decades of disappointment is either foolish or admirable - and probably both.