LA Clippers: Which Clippers Are the Greatest of Their Era?

LA Clippers GOTE 1984-89: Michael Cage

What a rough time for the LA Clippers. It makes sense that, in Wikipedia, this era is called “Move to Los Angeles, and early struggles.” By virtue of being one of the only good players to play for the team for several years in this era, Michael Cage gets dubbed the GOTE.

A 6’9 power forward / center, Cage contributed the most for the Clippers on the defensive end and on the glass. That said, in his third and fourth year he would get to 15.7 and 14.5 points per game, respectively, while still bringing down double-digit rebounds.

His biggest claim to fame came in his final season with the Clippers. In 87-88, he would beat Charles Oakley for the NBA rebounding title. Notably, he won it at the end of the season by grabbing 169 rebounds in his final 8 games. When it came to his final game of the season, he needed 28 rebounds to grab the title, and he would put up a personal season high by grabbing 30 boards.

Cage wouldn’t ever be on a winning Clippers team. In his four years, the Clips went 92-236, for an outstanding winning percentage of 0.280. He would go on to play for a few more teams – the Sonics with Payton/Kemp, the Cavaliers and the New Jersey Nets, where he would find less success in terms of personal stats, but more success in terms of wins.

Honorable mention goes to Norm Nixon. In the first two seasons of this “era” – 84-85 and 85-86 – Norm averaged 16 points and 8.7 assists and was named to the All-Star team in 84-85. Unfortunately, he would suffer a combination of knee and achilles injuries and miss all of 86-87 and 87-88. He tried to make a comeback in 88-89 but just wasn’t the same.