Is Chris Paul already the greatest of all Buffalo/San Diego/Los Angeles Braves/Clippers ever?

This is a story of an organisation. An organisation that has been a failure for the better part of its 40 year existence. An organisation that has been the NBA version of Chinese Water Torture; for decades, their incompetence, embarrassments, and failures have dripped down on fans slowly until driving them all closer towards insanity. It is an organisation that was named the worst franchise in sports history of all major American sports leagues in 2000 by Sports Illustrated. It is an organisation that has continuously found new ways to lose, through bad decisions, bad luck, and more often than not, really bad basketball.

Now, there are a lot of NBA teams who haven’t yet won a championship, or a Conference title, or a division title. But apart from the Clippers, who have existed in various forms in different cities since 1970, the other franchises in this category are relatively new to the league. The Los Angeles Clippers – previously the San Diego Clippers, and even previously, the Buffalo Braves – have made losing their calling-card. Between 1970-2011, the team only made the playoffs a paltry seven times, only went past the first round twice, and never went any further than that.

Founded in 1970 as the Buffalo Braves, they moved to San Diego in 1978 and were reborn as the San Diego Clippers. Six years later, they moved again, this time to Los Angeles, and became the good ol’ Clippers that we know today.

Now, a bad team doesn’t just become bad; it becomes bad as a sum of bad players. And the Clippers have had many, many bad players. Even the great ones had most of their peak years either before or after their time as a Clipper. Until recently, the greatest player ever in a Braves or a Clippers jersey was Bob McAdoo. McAdoo was drafted by the Braves in 1972 and immediately became a star – becoming rookie of the year – and was the NBA’s scoring champion the next three years. In 1975, the big man averaged 34.5 points and 14.1 rebounds per game to become the franchise’s only ever MVP. The Braves made the playoffs with him from 1974-76, but never went past the second round.

Of course, as per Braves/Clippers tradition, he moved on to other teams, played several injury-plagued seasons, but did win two NBA Championships with the Lakers. Not the Clippers.

There have been few and far between other ‘stars’ of note in the organisation. Between 1970-2000, McAdoo, Bob Kauffman, Randy Smith, World B. Free, Norm Nixon, Marques Johnson, Danny Manning, Elton Brand and Chris Kaman all became All Stars as Braves/Clippers. That is a very small number.

And then came Blake Griffin, the power forward who started his career with a typical Clipper curse (missing his rookie season due to injury) but came back to win the Rookie of the Year award and suddenly became the one hope and shining light for the team’s future. He added his name to the thin list of Clipper All Stars. Griffin not great enough yet to be a championship-calibre player by himself, but his arrival and potential made this historically depressing franchise an interesting option for other stars.

That other star – Chris Paul – was dropped into their hands unexpectedly. In the 2011 off-season, Paul came this close to joining the team’s neighbouring team and one of the most successful franchises in NBA history, the Lakers. Instead, #BasketballReasons landed him in Clipper-land before the season began. All of a sudden, the Clippers had the best pure point guard in the NBA.

Paul completely rejuvenated the team. The Clippers worked their way up to fifth place in the Western Conference (after 13th place just a year ago) and won a franchise-record 60.6 percent of their games in the regular season. They defeated the Grizzlies in the first round but were swept in the second round by the far more experienced Spurs’ side. Paul, who averaged 19.8 points and 9.1 assists per game, became an All Star and became the only Clipper since McAdoo to make the All NBA First Team, and the first Clipper ever to be in the All Defensive First Team.

This season, he has made the team even better. Halfway into the year, the Clippers are en-route to the greatest season in their history. They went on a franchise-best 17 game winning streak through December 2012. They currently hold the third-best record in the league and are en-route to their best winning percentage (72.7) and highest playoff seeding ever. Griffin, Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes, Caron Butler, and the rest of the deep squad are all making valuable contributions, but this is indubitably Paul’s team.

Paul’s scoring numbers are down this season but he continues to be the league’s best point guard and the team’s strongest-ever MVP candidate since McAdoo. For the first time, he has the team dreaming not just of the Conference Finals, but of a Championship.

Even in just a season and a half with the franchise, Paul could already be considered one of the greatest ever to wear the team’s red, white, and blue colours. McAdoo, Randy Smith, World B. Free, Elton Brand and Blake Griffin have all done great things for the club, but Paul might trump them all. It’s debatable if he’s better than McAdoo yet, but he’s certainly on his way, and certainly the best ever since the team moved into Los Angeles in their new avatar.

Chris Paul has already etched his name into Clipper history. But his success from this point forward – championships and MVP awards – will determine if he can further etch his name into all of NBA history. With one of the greatest point guards of this generation at the helm, the Clippers can finally turn around decades of their rotten luck and begin to slowly earn some respectability that they have lost in their dark past.

Chris Paul – the greatest Clipper of all time – can give the story of this organisation a happy ending.