Since Steve Ballmer became the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, a small bit of chatter has remained that he could eventually look to move the team out of Los Angeles.

According to Julie Bort of Yahoo, Ballmer has quickly shot down any notion that he is considering relocating the team to Seattle.

“LA Clippers! Stop this, ‘We should move them.' I'm not moving them,” he laughed. “I love Seattle. Seattle is wonderful. But the Clippers are an L.A. team.”

Ballmer has a personal connection to Seattle as he was the former CEO of Microsoft, which the headquarters was located in the city. The 61-year-old was also a key part of two efforts involving having an NBA team in town.

In March 2008, he was a part of a local ownership group that had allotted to invest $150 million toward a proposed $300 million renovation of KeyArena and were ready to buy the Seattle SuperSonics. However, things fell apart and the SuperSonics were relocated to Oklahoma City. In June 2012, Balmer was also a primary investor with the proposal to build a new arena in SoDo Neighborhood in Seattle.

The Clippers have shared the Staples Center with the Los Angeles Lakers since 1999, and have seen their relevance in the league rise with the playoff appearances, but still fall short of the attention the Lakers are receiving. A move to another venue could help tremendously establish themselves separately away from the Lakers.

That said, as long as they remain in Los Angeles, there will continue to be the public image of them being in the shadow of the Lakers given the tremendous amount of success that the franchise has had since moving to the city back in 1960.