Clippers and Cavaliers Wouldn’t Have Today’s Stars Without Long-Forgotten Trade

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers and Cleveland Cavaliers—who face off at Quicken Loans Arena Thursday night—can each trace their rise into the NBA’s elite to a single twist of fate.

For the Clippers, it was the moment “basketball reasons” made Chris Paul available in 2011. For the Cavaliers, it was LeBron James’ 2014 Ohio homecoming.

But for both teams, the seeds of their current successes were sewn well before those respective Banana Boat buddies came to the rescue. Bleacher Report spoke to sources with knowledge of the deals involved to detail the inside story.

The ball got rolling almost as soon as James invaded South Beach in July 2010. With one fell swoop, the Cavaliers went from perennial Eastern Conference contention to a soup-to-nuts rebuild.

Once those No. 23 jerseys were done smoldering in the streets, the team landed on its first order of business: stockpiling picks at all costs.

If it couldn’t keep a proud son of Akron from fleeing northeast Ohio, how could it hope to draw a star to a barren team in free agency? The Cavs’ best bet was to try to land one in the draft, since they didn’t have the assets to trade for another up-and-comer. Acquiring more picks meant more shots at the bull’s-eye, however tiny the target.

Cleveland had to track down a team with someone to shed and a pick to grease the skids.

Enter the Clippers.

       

The Perfect Partner

According to sources, David Griffin, then assistant general manager to Chris Grant in Cleveland, called front offices all over the league. He was offering up the Cavaliers’ cap space as refuge for unwanted contracts, so long as they came with draft picks.

Among those he rang was Neil Olshey, then-GM of the Clippers. They had known each other for years, first meeting when Griffin was an intern with the Phoenix Suns and Olshey was an assistant for former NBA super-agent Arn Tellem. But Griffin didn’t have to be so close to Olshey to know that Baron Davis was on the trading block; he just had to see what was going on in L.A.

In July 2008, Davis, fresh off a career-defining stint with the “We Believe” Golden State Warriors, signed on to be the Clippers’ hometown savior by way of a five-year, $65 million deal. But even at—or because of—that price, the order of overcoming then-owner Donald Sterling’s thriftiness, racism and cultural toxicity proved too tall.

Injuries and concerns about conditioning didn’t help Davis’ cause either. Neither did his clashes with Clippers coaches nor his noxious relationship with Sterling, who took to heckling Davis from his sideline seat during games.

“Baron’s his pet project. He absolutely hates Baron,” a team source told Marc J. Spears, then with Yahoo Sports, back in Dec. 2010. “He wants to get his money back.”

Davis, though, had served a purpose. He helped showcase Blake Griffin, the No. 1 pick in 2009, as a burgeoning superstar. After sitting out what would’ve been his rookie season to recover from a fractured knee cap, Griffin broke out as a high-flying dunk machine, thanks in no small part to Davis deftly dishing lob after lob.

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That connection turned Clippers basketball into a bona fide box-office bonanza. Seats at Staples Center filled up. Disgruntled season ticket holders put down their pitchforks and torches.

Not that the team was winning much more: Without Griffin in 2009-10, it notched 29 games. It won 32 with him the following season.

The time was nigh for a full-blown Clippers youth movement. It was clear that Griffin (21 at the time), DeAndre Jordan (22), Eric Gordon (22), Eric Bledsoe (21) and Al-Farouq Aminu (20) were going to lead the way.

Davis, for all he’d done to elevate Griffin and shield his young teammates from Sterling’s virulence, couldn’t stay in L.A. for such a project. His age (nearly 31) and ailing knees put him on an entirely different timeline from that of the Clippers’ rising stars. Plus, Sterling wouldn’t stand for his defiance or the $28.65 million that remained on his contract, per sources familiar with the team’s thinking.

The Clippers had to handle the situation carefully, lest they put off Griffin by moving Davis.

“Look, Blake really likes Baron,” Olshey told ESPN. “But Blake also knows that we’re in it …

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