Tom Hoffarth, Los Angeles Daily News (11/17/13)
Here’s the perfect way to turn this Sterling-Silver connection into gold: Change the team’s name.
New coach and former Clippers point guard Doc Rivers already has lobbed the idea up there to change the culture and image by suggesting they cover up those Lakers championship banners up on the Staples Center wall whenever the Clippers are in the building for a home game.
Except everyone knows what’s behind that curtain. And what the Clippers are trying to hide.
“You do not change your culture by changing your name,” longtime Clippers broadcaster Ralph Lawler said. “You do it by changing the way you do business. In case you haven’t noticed, that has been happening the past several years.
“Witness the league’s seventh-highest payroll and the current streak of 98 straight sellouts, not to mention the product on the court and the upgraded front office.”
“A name change would signal to many that they are trying to run from their past rather than continue to ease into their future,” said David Carter, the well-versed L.A. sports expert as executive director role for the Sports Business Institute and professor at USC’s Marshall School of Business.
“Assembling a consistently competitive team with credible ties to the community achieves the same effect, namely a repositioning of the team in the eyes of fans, sponsors and others that spend time and money with the team.”
If you’re bent on changing the Clippers’ culture, how about the nickname?
