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On the team flight from Los Angeles to the Bay Area between Games 2 and 3, Sterling decided to ride on the short flight with the rest of the organization. This was fairly rare for Sterling to do. He wasn’t exactly one of those helicopter parents with his fingerprints all over every decision and moment. He was fairly absentee, but this time he decided to fly with the team. He and his companions would commandeer a table area near the front of the plane, where the coaches always sat. With his presence in that area of the team flight, assistant coaches rushed toward the back of the plane telling support staff to swap seats with them.
Rivers would have to stay in his normal position, unable to avoid the owner on the short flight. But the assistant coaches wanted to avoid him like the plague, which they did. Support staff would be the sacrificial lambs for that hour-long flight, potentially enduring anything uncomfortable and unacceptable from a personal and professional environment.

The Clippers knew NBA commissioner Adam Silver would levy a punishment between Games 4 and 5. On the day of Game 5, the Clippers waited anxiously for the decision. If deemed unacceptable for the severity of the punishment, some sort of player protest was likely to occur. It wasn’t just the Clippers. The Warriors were going to possibly join the Clippers in a rare exhibition of playoff foe solidarity. Some things are just bigger than the game of basketball.
Maybe the decision would have been to warm up for the game and not return to the court for the game. Plenty of options were kicked around by the players. Rivers had been on the phone with the league leading up to Silver’s announcement. Chris Paul also had been a vocal leader for the players in discussing the matter with the league office.
During the playoffs, the time between games is already at a premium. Dealing with this media and professional circus certainly didn’t allow enough time to prepare for a game properly. Considering the Clippers didn’t have a proper organizational structure, Rivers had to deal with keeping nearly every aspect of the Clippers in order, apprising of the events to come and accounting for their feelings on the matter.

However, after that series against the Warriors, the Clippers were able to compartmentalize that distraction. Silver’s decision made the distraction not nearly as severe, even with so much up in the air with the future of the franchise. Rivers continued to be the organization’s rock to lean against. Everybody walked away impressed with how he took control and led not just the players but also the entire franchise.
During a few home days during the series against Oklahoma City, Rivers invited the organization to an outing. Sales team, public relations, community relations, support staff on the team, everybody. They went to a local Dave & Busters. Rivers spoke to the employees. NBA leaders spoke to the workers. They told everybody who attended that they understood they were dealing with a lot of the mess still and their continued work was greatly appreciated. It was a moment to escape the chaos, have fun as a workplace entity and acknowledge how screwed up all of this was.

A couple of weeks after the Thunder eliminated the Clippers, Steve Ballmer agreed to purchase the team for $2.2 billion. He held an introductory meeting with everybody in the organization. Finally some clarity would be bestowed upon the franchise and its workers. Ballmer let the employees know that nothing would be the same under his regime. All of the unacceptable practices and standards of the past would be gone. They were going to be run like a real NBA franchise and their focus would be winning.
Five years later, the Clippers are being taken seriously around the league. They’ve gone from being one of the biggest punch lines in sports to looking like a model for professionalism and success. Under Rivers, Lawrence Frank, Michael Winger, Trent Redden, Jerry West and countless others, the Clippers are poised to pounce on a summer of league-wide landscape changes. The Clippers are stacked with good young players, draft picks and salary-cap space. They have their sights set on Kawhi Leonard. They have the audacity to believe they can convince Kevin Durant to join Leonard on the Clippers. Pie-in-the-sky looks ready to serve.

People around the NBA used to bristle at how much of a joke the Clippers were. Sterling didn’t allow it to be run like a full-time professional sports organization. Today? Ballmer and company have the Clippers run as well as just about anybody. They have expertise, vision and dedication to doing more than just making money. Every aspect of the organization is recognized, supported and accounted for. Maybe they won’t be able to build a title contender — it’s extremely difficult to get to that level in the NBA — but they also won’t get in their own way like the Clippers organization infamously did for decades prior to Ballmer.

Everybody involved in what happened at the end of the Sterling era marvels at how well Rivers handled the most chaotic of moments.
“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Rivers said. “I didn’t have the education for that. I’m just being very honest with you. I really felt like I was lucky with a lot of things that happened. The biggest part was none of the players became the story. That was my only goal. The focus should be on the guy that did the crime, or not did the crime, but did what he said.
“I was so fearful that one of my players would say something and then they’d become the story. None of the players became the story and that’s what I was most proud of.”
The players of the Clippers are the story today. The organization of the Clippers is the story today. But not for any of the reasons feared five years ago.