Steve Ballmer is known as the affable, if not overly-excitable owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. But once upon a time he was nearly the owner of another team.
The Microsoft billionaire revealed that he was keen on purchasing a different team, the Detroit Pistons, more than 15 years ago. In a recent appearance on Serge Ibaka's How Hungry Are You interview show, Ballmer divulged a massive sliding doors moment for the Clippers franchise.
“Yeah. Oh yeah. Maybe 2006. The Super Bowl was in Detroit. Seattle, where I live, the Seattle Seahawks were playing. I went on a call with Bill Davidson who at the time was the owner of the Pistons. And I said y'know, if ever? He said, ‘No, I don't want to sell the team.' He was in his eighties. I said if anything ever changes, call me. Family, anybody call me. He died. Nobody ever called me and the team got sold.
The Clippers owner was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan which made him a fan off the local ball club. While he eventually moved to Seattle in the eighties during the rise of Microsoft, he evidently kept tabs on the glory days of the Bad Boy Pistons featuring Isiah Thomas up until the resurgence with the Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace led rosters of the mid 2000s.
Perhaps fate made it so that Steve Ballmer would instead end up buying the LA Clippers instead. After a dark era of ownership under the controversial Donald Sterling, Steve Ballmer is certainly a breath of fresh air.
“My luck, because I'm with the LA Clippers. Much better for me at this stage. I love LA. I don't have the fly four hours from Seattle to Detroit in the cold. So very lucky for me.”
Beyond just the fact that he doesn't come with the same baggage as Donald Sterling, he also comes with much deeper pockets. Deeper pockets than any current owner in the NBA, in fact as he's estimated to be nearly worth $100 billion in total net worth.
The Clippers likely wouldn't be in this position they find themselves in if Steve Ballmer wasn't the man signing the checks in LA. The moves to acquire Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were one thing, committing hundreds of millions of dollars for their stars. But at the same time, LAC hasn't been hesitant to lock up their bevy of talented role players around them to big money deals. That isn't something a conservative, relatively cash-strapped owner would have done without some pushback.
Ballmer was also instrumental in the push for a new arena that the Clippers are building to separate themselves from their longtime Staples-turned-Crypto neighbors. While he's not outright funding it himself, the name and gravitas he brings to the table undoubtedly helped them land the funding they needed in a hurry.
With an owner like Steve Ballmer who's so utterly committed to bringing a championship to the overlooked LA franchise, it's hard to imagine anyone else owning the Los Angeles Clippers.
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