Nothing has been easy for the Los Angeles Clippers. Here are the 15 best draft picks the team has made dating back to their days as the Buffalo Braves.
While they are rapidly approaching 50 years as a professional basketball franchise, no, the last half century has not been kind to the Los Angeles Clippers. Originally founded as an expansion team in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves, the Braves/Clippers did not win their first division title until 2013. Let’s just say there were a lot of lean years from their eight in Western New York, their six in Southern California as the San Diego Clippers and their tenure in Los Angeles beginning in 1984.
That being said, the Braves/Clippers have had the luxury of picking some pretty impressive players in NBA Drafts over the last five decades. However, only one of them has earned enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. That would be center Bob McAdoo, and he was terrific starring in Buffalo for the Braves.
Of course, there will be potentially a few more players to earn Springfield enshrinement that have played for the Clippers recently. Lob City may be a thing of the past, but it was the peak for this otherwise downtrodden basketball franchise historically.
So what we are going to do today is rank the 15 best players the Braves/Clippers have ever drafted. Let’s keep in mind that a few Clippers greats like Chris Paul and Elton Brand began their basketball careers elsewhere. The franchise has often traded draft picks to other clubs like the former Seattle SuperSonics on multiple occasions.
Without further ado, here are the 15 players that had the most success with the Braves/Clippers after the franchise had drafted them.
Before embarking on an NBA career in the 1990s, point guard Terry Dehere was an outstanding player in the Big East. He was the star point guard for P.J. Carlesimo’s Seton Hall Pirates. At Seton Hall, Dehere was a three-time All-Big East first team player, the 1993 Big East Player of the Year and a second-team All-American in his senior season in South Orange, New Jersey.
The Clippers would take Dehere with the No. 13 overall pick in the 1993 NBA Draft. He would play four of his six NBA seasons with the team that drafted him. In four years with the Clippers, Dehere would average 8.9 points and 2.7 assists per game in 18.7 minutes per contest. Dehere was largely the team’s backup point guard during his first four years in the league.
During the summer of 1997, Dehere would be waived by the Clippers before signing with the division rival Sacramento Kings ahead of the 1997-98 NBA season. Dehere would play only four games with the 1998-99 Kings before being waived a second time. He would sign a 10-day contract with the then Vancouver Grizzlies before playing out his last NBA season that spring.
Overall, Dehere is best remembered for his on-court brilliance in college at Seton Hall. His alma mater has his No. 24 jersey retired. Dehere finished his half-decade NBA career averaging 8.0 points, 2.6 assists and 1.5 rebounds per game. This would be a forgettable draft pick for many NBA teams, but sticking with the Clippers for four years has Dehere cracking the top-15.
It hasn’t been all that long since long-time NBA shooting guard Quentin Richardson called it a career. While he last played for the New York Knicks in 2012-13, Richardson began his 13-year NBA career with the team that drafted him in the Clippers. Richardson was taken No. 18 overall in the underwhelming 2000 NBA Draft out of DePaul University in Chicago.
Richardson would play his first four NBA seasons with the Clippers from 2000 to 2004. He would average 12.0 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game in 25.7 minutes per contest in Clippers uniform. Richardson’s best season with the Clippers would come in his last year with the team in 2003-04. He would make the most of his contract year, averaging 17.2 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game in 36.0 minutes per contest.
Richardson would reach free agency for the first time in summer 2004. He would sign with the division rival Phoenix Suns in his free agency, but obviously was not long for the Valley of the Sun. Richardson was traded on the fifth anniversary of his draft selection to the New York Knicks, where he would play the next four seasons.
Overall, Richardson would average 10.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists over 13 NBA seasons, playing for five different teams. Shortly after his retirement, Richardson would join the Detroit Pistons staff as director of player development. He held that job for two years through the 2015-16 NBA season. Richardson is looking to be an NBA head coach one day.
Overall, center Benoit Benjamin played for nine NBA teams in his 15-year NBA career. However, he is best known for spending the most time with the team that drafted him No. 3 overall in the 1985 NBA Draft. The Clippers took the big man out of Creighton University and had him as a fixture in the starting lineup for 5.5 NBA seasons.
The seven-footer averaged 13.3 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.8 blocks per game in 31.3 minutes per contest. In 406 career games with the Clippers organization, Benjamin would start in 315 of them. While he would find stability with the Clippers in the 1980s, Benjamin would begin his career as a journeyman in the middle of the 1990-91 NBA season.
Benjamin would be traded to the Seattle SuperSonics for Olden Polynice. From then on, Benjamin would never spend more than two years in one place. He would go on to play for teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, the New Jersey Nets and the Vancouver Grizzlies before retiring after the 1999-00 NBA season as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In 15 NBA seasons, Benjamin would average 11.4 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game. His verticality made him a reliable shot blocker early in his career. However, once his blocks per game went down, Benjamin would succumb to a life of a journeyman NBA player. He did carve out a nice, lengthy career through, just with nine organizations over 15 seasons.
Power forward Terry Cummings is best known as a basketball player both collegiately with the DePaul Blue Demons and professionally with the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1980s. What tends to get often overlooked in Cummings’ 18-year NBA career was how great he was out of the gate for the then San Diego Clippers.
San Diego drafted the 1982 consensus All-American out of DePaul No. 2 overall in the 1982 NBA Draft. Cummings’ time with the Clippers was short, lasting only two years. However, he put up some incredible numbers before being shipped to Milwaukee in the Marques Johnson trade in September 1984.
Cummings was the 1983 NBA Rookie of the Year and obviously made the 1983 All-Rookie first team. That season saw Cummings average a career-high 23.7 points, a career-high 10.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game in 36.2 minutes per contest. Cummings would add another great season for the Clippers in 1983-84 before going to Wisconsin in the high-profile trade of Johnson from the Bucks.
In Milwaukee, Cummings would make both of his All-Star teams in 1985 and 1989, making the All-NBA second team in 1985 and the All-NBA third team in 1989. Cummings would play in the NBA until 2000, with most of those games coming with the San Antonio Spurs in the early 1990s. One can only imagine what Cummings could have done for the Clippers franchise if his stint with the club was more than just two years long.
If only he stayed healthy. In the early beginnings of the Braves/Clippers franchise, Buffalo had itself one outstanding point guard. That guy was former Providence Friars point guard Ernie DiGregorio. For a while, he was a shining star there in Buffalo. However, it did not last.
DiGregorio was taken No. 3 overall by the Braves in the 1973 NBA Draft. He was coming off an All-American season with the Friars and was beginning to set the league on fire as a rookie. DiGregorio was named NBA Rookie of the Year in 1973-74 and was named to the All-Rookie first team. He would lead the NBA in assists per game (8.2) and free throw percentage (90.2) that season.
Sadly, DiGregorio’s NBA career would be shortened by a knee injury. He would only play four seasons with the Braves before being traded to the Los Angeles Lakers for cash considerations in 1977. DiGregorio would later be waived by the Lakers, signing with the Boston Celtics to close out the 1979-80 NBA season and his career.
While he would lead the league in free throw percentage for a second time in 1976-77, DiGregorio is best known for his short, but promising NBA career with the Braves. Had he played into his 30s, DiGregorio could have re-joined his former franchise in San Diego as the Clippers. Things would have been different for the Braves/Clippers had DiGregorio had been able to stay healthy.
His time with the Clippers was short, but it ultimately ended in the beginning of the best era of Clippers basketball to date. We are obviously talking about shooting guard Eric Gordon. The Clippers used their No. 7 overall pick to draft Gordon out of Indiana in the 2008 NBA Draft. He would only spend three years with the Clippers before being traded.
Gordon was the big piece going the other way in the Chris Paul trade with the then New Orleans Hornets ahead of the 2011-12 NBA season. He would play the next four seasons in New Orleans before signing with the division rival Houston Rockets. In his first year with the Rockets, Gordon would win NBA Sixth Man of the Year. Fate would only have it that Paul would join Gordon as a member of the 2017-18 Rockets shortly before free agency via trade.
Gordon might be just a good, but not great player while with Houston. However, he was an emerging star heading into his fourth year in the league. In three years with the Clippers, Gordon averaged 18.1 points, 3.3 assists and 2.7 rebounds per game. He made the NBA All-Rookie second team in 2009.
Perhaps New Orleans was just a bad fit for the guy, as Gordon has certainly carved out a solid role on a very good Mike D’Antoni Rockets team. While he surely would have become a star in Los Angeles, it was necessary to trade him for Paul at the end of the day. Who knows if the Clippers would have won either of their two division titles if Gordon was still on the team?
During the 1990s, power forward Loy Vaught was a mainstay in the Clippers’ front court. Los Angeles used its No. 13 overall pick in the 1990 NBA Draft to select Vaught out of the University of Michigan. In 1989, Vaught played an integral role in the Michigan Wolverines’ first and only NCAA Championship to date on the hardwood.
Though never an All-Star or garnered any personal accolades in his 11-year NBA career, Vaught was a model of consistency at power forward for the Clippers. He would play his first eight of 10 NBA seasons for the franchise that drafted him. Vaught would play in 558 career games with the Clippers, starting in 343 of those contests.
In his NBA career, Vaught would average 10.1 points and 7.1 rebounds per game in 24.7 minutes per contest. Vaught would be part of three playoff teams with the Clippers. He averaged 11.9 points, 8.0 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game in his eight years with the Clippers. Vaught would leave the Clippers for the Detroit Pistons in 1998 NBA free agency.
After leaving the Clippers, Vaught would only play three more seasons in the NBA split between the Pistons, the Dallas Mavericks and the Washington Wizards. He would retire after the 2000-01 NBA season. During his time with the Clippers, Vaught was best known for his rebounding ability at the four with some offensive ability in the low post.
After starting out the junior college route with Wabash Valley College, small forward Ken Norman would become a second-team All-American with the Illinois Fighting Illini in 1987. The Clippers would use the No. 19 overall pick in the 1987 NBA Draft to draft “Snake” out of Illinois.
Norman would play 10 NBA seasons. His first six came with the team that drafted him in the Clippers. Though Norman never made an All-Star team, he would be a solid role player with the Clippers for half a dozen years from 1987 to 1993. Norman would play four more NBA seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks and the Atlanta Hawks before retiring after the 1996-97 NBA season.
Norman would play on two Clippers teams that made trips to the Western Conference Playoffs in 1992 and 1993. In Clippers uniform, Norman would play in 439 games, starting in 311 of them. He would average 14.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game in 30.9 minutes per contest.
While he would play in all 82 games with the 1993-94 Bucks, Norman would see his minutes dwindle in Atlanta once he joined the Hawks the following season. However, Norman will be best known for his role at the three on the Clippers in the late 1980s to early 1990s where he achieved career highs in points, rebounds and assists.
Before he got all caught up in the Kardashians, forward Lamar Odom was an outstanding player for both Los Angeles based NBA franchises. After a brief and tumultuous time in college, the Clippers selected Odom No. 4 overall in the 1999 NBA Draft after his freshman season with the Rhode Island Rams of the Atlantic 10.
Sure, Odom would achieve most of his NBA success as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, where he would win back-to-back NBA Championships in 2009 and 2010, as well as the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2011. That being said, Odom was a talented, albeit troubled player during his first few years in the league with the Clippers.
Odom would play his first four NBA seasons with the Clippers from 1999 to 2003. He was an All-Rookie first teamer in 2000, but a pair of drug policy suspensions limited Odom to just 78 games in his third and fourth seasons in the league. Odom would sign with the Miami Heat in 2003 NBA free agency and would reshape his NBA career the rest of the way.
He would retire after the 2012-13 NBA season after rejoining the Clippers as a high-end reserve. Odom would play in all 82 NBA games during his final season in the league. In five seasons with the Clippers, Odom averaged 12.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game in 31.7 minutes per contest. He would play in 312 of his 961 career NBA games with the Clippers, starting in 218 of them for Los Angeles.
The 2003 NBA Draft has gone down as one for the ages. Four of the top-five picks will be obvious Basketball Hall of Famers in LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. However, the Clippers did make a great selection at No. 6 that summer in taking center Chris Kaman out of Central Michigan.
The seven-foot Central Michigan Chippewa was the MAC Player of the Year at the time of his draft selection. Kaman would play eight of his 13 NBA seasons for the Clippers. His best year in the NBA came in 2009-10 when he was a member of the Clippers. Kaman would average 18.5 points, 9.3 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game that year, as he made his only trip to the All-Star Game that February.
Kaman would play his first eight NBA seasons with the Clippers where he would average 11.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.4 blocks and 1.3 assists in 29.7 minutes per contest. He would spend his final five NBA seasons with the then New Orleans Hornets, the Dallas Mavericks, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Portland Trail Blazers before retiring in 2016 at 33 years old.
Kaman may never get the respect he deserves for being a great center for the Clippers for close to a decade. The team wasn’t very good and the players drafted ahead of him in the 2003 NBA Draft sans Darko Milicic would go on to have hall of fame careers. That being said, Kaman’s career in the NBA was an overwhelming success and the Clippers should be pleased of their selection of him No. 6 overall back in 2003.
In college for the Kansas Jayhawks, power forward Danny Manning willed the Kansas Jayhawks to a 1988 NCAA Championship over the Big Eight rival Oklahoma Sooners. Manning would win every major award in that 1988 NCAA season before the Clippers took him No. 1 overall in the NBA Draft later that summer.
Manning would have a lengthy, albeit injury-riddled NBA career over 15 seasons. He would be part of one of the strangest trades in NBA history where the Eastern Conference leading Atlanta Hawks would trade Dominique Wilkins and a first-round pick for Manning before the trade deadline. Before that 1994 deal, Manning had his best seasons as the star player for the Clippers.
Manning would make both of his trips to the All-Star Game in his final two seasons with the Clippers in 1992-93 and 1993-94. In six years with the Clippers, Manning averaged 19.1 points, 6.4 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game in 34.0 minutes per contest. Manning would go on to be NBA Sixth Man of the Year as a member of the 1997-98 Phoenix Suns.
He would retire after the 2002-03 NBA season as a member of the Detroit Pistons. Manning would play for seven NBA teams in his 15-year NBA career. After retiring, he immediately got into coaching. He would serve as an assistant for his alma mater Kansas in the 2000s before getting the Tulsa Golden Hurricane job in 2012. Manning is currently the head basketball coach for the Wake Forest Demon Deacons in the ACC.
Though he never got a chance to play for the Clippers while they were in Los Angeles, swingman Randy Smith was an Iron Man for both Buffalo and San Diego. The guy set an NBA record for most consecutive NBA games played at 906, passing Johnny Kerr’s 845 back in 1982 with San Diego.
Smith was not a first-round pick by the Braves, but was a late-round find by Buffalo back in 1971. He was taken No. 104 overall and would play his first eight NBA seasons with the Braves/Clippers franchise. Smith made two All-Star games in his time with the franchise in 1976 and 1978. In 1976, Smith would be named to the All-NBA second team. He was the MVP of the 1978 NBA All-Star Game.
In 1979, Smith would be traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. However, he would return to the Clippers in 1982 in time to set the NBA Iron Man record of consecutive games played. He would briefly play with the New York Knicks and the Atlanta Hawks before retiring after the 1982-83 NBA season.
Smith played parts of nine NBA seasons with the Braves/Clippers. He would average 17.8 points, 4.9 assists and 4.1 assists during those nine NBA seasons. While Smith will likely never be a hall of famer, he remains one of the greatest players in franchise history. If he does earn Springfield enshrinement, it will have to be posthumously, as Smith sadly passed away from a heart attack after a workout in 2009 at age 60.
Center DeAndre Jordan is the only player on this list that is still active and playing for the Clippers. He has proven to be one of the best second-round selections in recent memory. Jordan has one of the best centers in basketball for the last half decade. Los Angeles got a tremendous value pick in taking him No. 35 out of Texas A&M.
Jordan was raw coming out of College Station, but proved to be an important pillar in what was known as Lob City in Clippers basketball. He might have a player option for 2018-19 worth $24,119,025, but Jordan’s first 10 years in the league, all with the Clippers, have been fantastic so far.
To date, Jordan has made three All-NBA teams, third team twice in 2015 and 2017 and first team in 2016. Jordan made first team All-Defense twice in 2015 and 2015. He led the league in rebounding twice in 2014 and 2016. He made his first trip to the All-Star Game in 2017, as well as won Olympic gold for Team USA in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
Through the 2017-18 NBA season, Jordan has averaged 10.7 rebounds, 9.4 points and 1.7 blocks per game. Jordan has arguably earned having his jersey retired by the Clippers at this point. He’ll need another All-Star Game or two for us to seriously think about him getting into the Basketball Hall of Fame. Regardless, Jordan has been one of the best centers in the league for the last half decade.
It was sad to see him go, but maybe one day the Clippers will get another high-flying basketball acrobat that can dunk over Kia Optimas half as well as Blake Griffin did in that one slam dunk contest. He might now play for the Detroit Pistons, but Griffin is the best No. 1 overall draft pick in Clippers franchise history by a mile.
Los Angeles drafted the National Player of the Year out of Oklahoma first overall in the 2009 NBA Draft. However, he would not debut until the 2010-11 NBA season due to injury. It turned out to be okay though, as Griffin would win NBA Rookie of the Year for 2010-11. He would proceed to rattle off five straight All-Star appearances right out of the gate and four straight All-NBA team honors from his second year on.
During the 2013-14 NBA season, Griffin would finish third in NBA MVP voting. That year he averaged 24.1 points, 9.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game in 35.8 minutes per contest. Griffin was an emerging superstar as the primary aerial leader of Lob City. However, he would not make an All-Star game for the Clippers after his 26th birthday.
Griffin would be traded to the Pistons right before the 2018 NBA trade deadline. In his Clippers career, Griffin played in and started 504 games for Los Angeles. He averaged 21.6 points, 9.3 rebounds and 4.2 assists per game in 35.1 minutes per contest in seven-plus seasons with the Clippers. Griffin was on track to be the first Clipper to have his jersey retired by the organization, but now we’ll just have to wait and see now that he has been traded to the Pistons.
To date, the only Basketball Hall of Famer that played a significant part of his career with the Braves/Clippers franchise is center/power forward Bob McAdoo. The Braves selected McAdoo No. 2 overall in the 1972 out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. McAdoo spent 4.5 of his 14 hall of fame seasons in Buffalo.
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His time with the Braves was short, but tremendous. McAdoo won 1973 NBA Rookie of the Year. He made five straight All-Star Games from 1974 to 1978, the first four as a member of the Braves.
In 1974, McAdoo would be named to the All-NBA second team. The following year, he would be named 1975 NBA MVP, obviously making his only All-NBA first team.
In February 1979, McAdoo was traded to the New York Knicks for Tom Barker and three first-round picks.
Sadly, his 2.5-year tenure with the Knicks was short-lived and injury-riddled. McAdoo would bounce around the NBA through the 1985-86 NBA season. He would win two NBA titles as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers.
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McAdoo would play overseas as a star in EuroLeague until 1993. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000. His Basketball Hall of Fame classmates include Detroit Pistons point guard Isiah Thomas and Tennessee Lady Volunteers coach Pat Summitt. In his Braves career, McAdoo averaged 28.2 points, 12.7 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game in 40.1 minutes per contest. He had been a longtime assistant coach for the Miami Heat through the 2013-14 NBA season.