Donald Sterling was the owner of the Clippers when they left San Diego to move to the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 1984. He’s a greedy man who lived in Los Angeles, he owned a bad Clipper team playing in a fast-aging building in San Diego, Sterling was bouncing checks to the point the NBA was ready to take the team away from him, and the selfish owner wanted the team closer to him in a situation where he could make as much money as possible. To suggest Sterling (especially in that era) made any move that was not financially related would be just wrong.
Still Bill Walton — a San Deigo native — blames himself for Clippers leaving San Diego.
He talked about it with the brilliant Arash Markazi of ESPN.“When you fail in your hometown, that’s as bad as it gets, and I love my hometown,” said Walton, who grew up in La Mesa, 9 miles east of downtown San Diego. “I wish we had NBA basketball here, and we don’t because of me....
“It’s my greatest failure as a professional in my entire life,” Walton said. “I could not get the job done in my hometown. It is a stain and stigma on my soul that is indelible. I’ll never be able to wash that off, and I carry it with me forever.”
It was not on Walton. Not even close.
This was the Walton between the as-good-as-any-center-ever Walton that led the Trail Blazers to the title in 1977 and the Sixth Man of the Year Walton in Boston in 1985. The Clippers’ Walton was the one battling multiple foot surgeries that kept him out of most of multiple seasons in a row — something he could not control. And if you want to make judgements about how he was healthy before and after his time with the Clippers but seemed to get poor medical treatment on cheap Sterling’s team, go right ahead.
The move to LA was all about Donald Sterling. It was about his pocket book and what was convenient for him. There was a reason his team was at the bottom of the NBA for two decades (and that since he sold the team, while they have struggled to advance deep in the playoffs, they have been a more serious threat).
Bill Walton shouldn’t blame himself.
