Advertisement - scroll for more content
The Clippers played several games in the 1990s in Anaheim, hosting the Lakers three times (a win in 1997, and losses in 1998 and 1999). But rather than relocate to Orange County, the Clippers agreed to join the Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings at STAPLES Center in time for the 1999-2000 season. The arrangement made the Clippers a third tenant (after the Lakers and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings), with the Lakers getting preferential dates and game times compared to the Clippers on an annual basis. The Lakers went on to win a championship in the first year at STAPLES Center, and six titles total while sharing an arena with the Clippers. “It is, in a way, a historic meeting,” longtime retired Clippers broadcaster Ralph Lawler texted to The Athletic. “The Lakers have always had all the key cards in the deck. First it was LA over San Diego, and then the Forum over the L.A. Sports Arena, then the feeling they were ‘letting’ the Clippers be a third-ranking tenant in ‘their’ Staples Center home for 25 years.”
The first statue, a 19-foot bronze memorial to Bryant's 81-point game against the Toronto Raptors, was unveiled on Feb. 8. Friday's date (8/2/24) holds similar numerology meaning to the February ceremony (2/8/24), representing both of Bryant's uniform numbers (8 and 24) and the No. 2 that 13-year-old Gigi wore on the basketball court. The statue of the father and daughter is located near the Los Angeles Kings' monument celebrating the team's 50th anniversary. It will be available for the public to visit starting Saturday morning, sources told ESPN.
Will people be unable to watch games? No. The NBA insists that, like Major League Baseball did with San Diego and Arizona, it will make sure games remain on the air for fans to watch. Teams across the league are already beginning to plan for the possibility that they might need an alternative to their RSN deal, depending on how things play out with Bally's, in particular. One example of a potential alternative is Scripps Sports, which has signed deals in recent months with several teams, including the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, Vegas Golden Knights and Arizona Coyotes.
“I’ve talked about this in the past, you have to understand, the Buss family owns two-thirds of the Lakers, 66, 67 percent. And there are six Buss children (as part of that ownership trust). And that’s their core family business. They don’t have a Microsoft stock that pays them hundreds of millions, they don’t have a tech company. So let’s say the Lakers make $100 million, that means the Buss family gets $67 million of that, and now you split that six different ways, all of them have $10 million and change per year. That sounds like a lot, but when you think about ‘hey, maybe we could sell 10% of the team and get $600 million for it or something, then all of a sudden all of them get $100 million. “I could see Mark Walter and Todd Boehly of Guggenheim, they recently bought 25, 27 percent of the Lakers. They bought out Phil Anschutz, who owned Crypto.com Arena and owns the (Los Angeles) Kings. He owned 27 percent, he sold out a year or so ago. We never heard what they paid for that, but my guess is it was huge. So it’s already been established, there has already been a percentage of the Lakers sold in the last year. It wasn’t by the Buss (family), so that’s just something to keep an eye on.”
Advertisement
The Commercial Appeal interviewed Dr. Kenneth Jung, an orthopedics doctor who specializes in foot and ankle fractures, to get more clarity on Jackson's injury. Jung was a foot and ankle consultant for the L.A. Lakers, Anaheim Ducks and L.A. Kings, among other sports franchises.
Before every Clippers game last season, the team’s training staff would honor Kawhi Leonard’s request and create a private space for his pregame routine. The staffers would enter and take over that space for roughly 20 to 45 minutes, according to multiple team and league sources. On the road, there were occasions when the space they occupied was the female staffers’ locker room. That also happened sometimes before a doubleheader at Staples Center when the changing of the court limited the availability of the Los Angeles Kings’ locker room, where Leonard normally warmed up privately.
AEG, the LA Clippers, LA Galaxy, LA Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, LA Sparks and Rank + Rally have joined forces to launch the TEAMS FOR LA ON-LINE SUPERSALE to sell logoed team merchandise, as well as classic merchandise from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the GRAMMY Awards, to benefit the Mayor’s L.A. Emergency COVID-19 Crisis Fund.
Shortly after the Lakers moved their games from the run-down Forum to the utilitarian Staples Center downtown in 1999, they leased half of a sprawling recreational complex in El Segundo for their training headquarters. They still share the Toyota Sports Center with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, who have public ice skating rinks in the noisy building. The Lakers have practice courts and rudimentary training facilities, but the cramped confines forced them to move several business departments to another office building down the street. "A couple of years ago, we realized that as we grew, we needed to find a new facility," Lakers chief operating officer Tim Harris said. "We wanted to build our own facility and have our own identity. ... We want players to treat this place like a second home."
Lakers officials said the UCLA Health Training Center will be triple the size of the team's current training facility, the Toyota Sports Center, which sits less than a half mile away. (The Lakers have practiced at the Toyota Sports Center since 2000 and today share the complex with the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League.)
Advertisement
His Microsoft compatriot, Paul Allen, owns both the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers and is worth $17.5 billion (40th overall in Forbes rankings). Rounding out the top five are Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross at $12 billion (80th), Los Angeles Kings owner Phil Anschutz at $9.7 billion (108th) and Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke at $7.7 billion (148th). Kroenke's wife Ann is worth $4.5 billion, according to Forbes.
Chris Paul attended the LA Kings’ playoff game at Staples Center Friday night where he got the chance to meet new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer. The former Microsoft CEO agreed to buy the Clippers for a record $2 billion Thursday.
Perzik, who represented former Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss for 45 years, was intimately involved in the complicated acquisition of the team by Dr. Buss in 1979 when he purchased the Lakers, the Forum, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and related properties from previous owner Jack Kent Cooke. In his new position, Perzik will continue to oversee the Lakers’ legal issues, including the development of the team’s new training facility and offices. In January 2015, he will decrease his office workload, but will continue to work with the team in a consulting capacity. “Having worked with Dan as our outside legal representative for over 30 years, we’re very familiar and comfortable with him, and have the highest regard for him as both an attorney and person,” said Buss. “Jim has been a part of our Lakers family as well as an important member of our organization for many years,” continued Buss. “His contributions to our company and our success have been invaluable and greatly appreciated.”
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement