NBA taking full advantage of finally having an L.A. story worth telling

The NBA has operated 2 franchises in Los Angeles for 35 years and finally have a rare opportunity with both clubs on the upswing in 2019-20.

For 35 years, the NBA has been waiting for an opportunity to push its intra-city rivalry in Los Angeles. With a pair of star-studded duos forming in the City of Angels for the 2019-20 season, the NBA might finally have its chance.

The Los Angeles Lakers added LeBron James as a free agent in the summer of 2018 and this summer swung a blockbuster trade with the New Orleans Pelicans to land Anthony Davis to be LeBron’s new running mate.

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Meanwhile, across the hall in Staples Center, the LA Clippers pulled off the most audacious move in franchise history by signing two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard and trading for MVP finalist Paul George, setting up the Clippers as a prohibitive favorite to capture their first NBA title.

It seems Major League Baseball has had the lion’s share of the luck when it comes to promoting more than one successful franchise in the same city at the same time and even MLB’s heyday with New York was more than 60 years ago.

The NBA hasn’t had the same luck in Gotham. The New York Knicks and the various iterations of the Brooklyn Nets have had some fleeting successes since the Nets joined the NBA in 1976, but those periods have never seriously overlapped.

And Los Angeles? There have been two teams there since 1984, but there has never been a time when both clubs could be taken seriously as contenders.

The closest the Lakers and Clippers came to legitimacy at the same time came in the early years of this decade after the Clippers — much to the chagrin of Laker fans to this day — were the unintended beneficiaries of Commissioner David Stern overturning a proposed trade that would have sent Chris Paul to the Lakers.

Instead, the Clippers landed Paul from the then-New Orleans Hornets and rose rapidly up the Western Conference hierarchy.

The Clips passed the Lakers along the way, as the first Los Angeles club was descending to the darkest period in franchise history on the heels of back-to-back titles in 2009 and 2010.

The first season after the Paul trade was the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign, with Paul’s trade to the Clippers coming just days before the delayed season opener on Christmas.

The buzz surrounding the Clippers being good at a time when the Lakers still had considerable cache despite a playoff sweep at the hands of the Dallas Mavericks was palpable. For the first time, the question was being asked: “Who owns L.A.?”

The Lakers finished the shortened season 41-25, a game ahead of the Clips’ 40-26 mark.

Both teams bowed out in the conference semifinals before the Clippers passed the Lakers the following season, winning the Pacific Division for the first time en route to a 56-26 record, 11 games better than the Lakers; 45-37 mark.

But both teams were bounced in the first round in 2013 and the Lakers haven’t been back to the postseason since.

The NBA is taking full advantage of the changing tide in L.A.

ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Friday that one of the marquee Christmas Day matchups will feature the Lakers against the Clippers at Staples Center and Shams Charania of The Athletic reported Saturday that the opening-night doubleheader on Oct. 22 will include a meeting between the Lakers and Clippers.

That’s two of the four scheduled meetings between the Staples Center roomies pushed as far front and center as possible. It won’t be a shocker if the other two meetings end up on the national TV lineup as well.

A shared history of one or the other, seldom both

In 35 seasons in which the Lakers and Clippers have shared Los Angeles, one or the other has reached the playoffs in 32 of those years.

Sounds great, right?

But here’s the rub. The Lakers and Clippers have only simultaneously been playoffs teams in six of those 35 years.

It happened for the first time in 1993, again in 1994, then in 1997, 2006, 2012 and 2013.

The only years since 1984 that L.A. has been shut out of the postseason entirely have been 1994, 2005 and 2018.

The Christmas Day meeting between the Lakers and Clippers will be the fourth time the teams have met on the NBA’s premier holiday. The teams last played on Christmas in 2016, with the Lakers winning 111-102, avenging a 94-84 Christmas Day loss to the Clippers in 2015.

The only other time the teams played on Christmas was in 1991 when the Lakers picked up an 85-75 win.

Their shared postseason history is even more brief, as the Lakers and Clippers have never met in a playoff series.

At least New York has gotten the Knicks and Nets to collide in the playoffs three times, all first-round meetings, with the Knicks winning in 1983 and 1994 and the Nets picking up a sweep in 2004. Not a lot of history, true, but more than the shared L.A. rivalry has been able to produce.

It’s already leaked that half of the regular-season meeting between the Lakers and Clippers will be in prime spots — opening night and Christmas.

If the NBA can get a playoff series featuring LeBron and The Brow against the Klaw and PG-13?Yeah, that one will likely not be the NBA TV special.

The NBA finally has an L.A. story worth telling and they are going to tell it as loudly and in front of as many eyeballs as it can find.