The Clippers are 1-1 and sit 7th in the West. They opened the stretch with a 121-96 win over the Kings on October 21. They lost 117-125 at the Lakers on October 23.
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Against the Kings, Darius Garland scored 30 points. Brook Lopez added 17 points and 11 rebounds. The win put the team 2nd in the West, and the power rankings had the Clippers up from 16th to 3rd in a week. At the Lakers, Garland scored 26 and Lopez 22. The loss moved the team to 4th in the West on October 24, and then to 7th on October 25. The power rankings dropped them to 11th. Three games were on the schedule for the week of October 21, and two are done.
The injury list got longer in one place and stayed quiet in another. On October 22, Brandon Ingram was listed Out with a right heel and leg issue. Earlier updates had him out with a partially torn Achilles, and he returned to on-court work on October 15. Bradley Beal is also Out, now listed with a right knee and leg issue. He was downgraded to Out on October 14. Jordan Miller joined them on the Out list on October 22 with a left shoulder and arm issue. Miller scored 15 against the Nuggets on October 14. Yanic Konan Niederhauser has been Out with a right foot and leg issue since October 16. Max Strus has had no new report since October 5, when he was said to face at least four weeks out with a foot injury. Kobe Sanders and Kris Dunn were cleared on October 17.
The roster churn that filled the last update came to an end on October 18. That day Blake Wesley, Jahmyl Telfort, Miye Oni and Nathan Mensah all left the team. Telfort had joined on October 8. Oni and Mensah had signed on October 15. Wesley had been named in an October 17 report that the Clippers cut four players. Cam Christie, who was waived on October 14 and re-signed on a two-way deal, stayed on the roster. So did Jalen Pickett, Baba Miller, Nick Martinelli, Gradey Dick, Derrick Jones Jr., Keaton Wagler and Isaiah Jackson. Yuki Kawamura and Fletcher Loyer, who left earlier in the month, are gone.
Garland and Lopez are carrying the scoring while Ingram, Beal and Miller are out. Rui Hachimura scored 14 in the October 10 loss at the Raptors and 16 in the win over the Nuggets. He did not appear among the leading scorers in either game this week.
Off the court, nothing has moved. The front office is still interim, with John Gibson as Governor and CEO and Trent Redden running basketball operations. No permanent hire has been reported. The federal investigation into the Clippers' dealings with Kawhi Leonard, open since September 10, has no reported update.
Open storylines
as of Sun, Oct 25He returned to on-court work on October 15, but on October 22 he was listed Out with a right heel and leg issue, and no return date has been given.
Beal has been Out since October 14, and Jordan Miller was listed Out with a shoulder and arm issue on October 22, with no return dates.
A report on October 5 said he would miss at least four weeks with a foot injury, and nothing has been added since.
The team went from 2nd to 7th in the West in three days after the 117-125 loss at the Lakers.
The interim leadership has no permanent hire, and the Leonard investigation open since September 10 has no reported update.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Derrick Jones Jr. (3.8 wins without him), Gradey Dick (1.3 wins without him), Rui Hachimura (1.3 wins without him), Yanic Konan Niederhauser (1.1 wins without him) and Brook Lopez (0.6 wins without him): on/off from 2026-27, details under Injuries. Computed Sun, Oct 25; the method is on the methods page.
The race
Western Conference · 80 games leftNext 5: at Thunder100%vs Lakers100%at Timberwolves100%at Warriors0%vs Raptors100%opponents win 80% of their games on average
Standings and games back are from the official table; the pace is the current record carried over 82 games, nothing more.
Day by day
39 days on the recordEarlier on the record35 more days · back to Mon, Sep 7
The franchise
Every season since the start →Public record →Nowupdated 2026-10-19
The Clippers enter 2026-27 under head coach Tyronn Lue, coming off a 42-40 season that ranked 11th on offense and 18th on defense, good for 16th in net rating leaguewide. The core is built around Brandon Ingram and Darius Garland, with Rui Hachimura, Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr., Max Strus, Jordan Miller and Brook Lopez filling out the rotation on an 18-man, 26.3-average-age roster. Payroll sits at $193.7 million across 19 contracts, over the $165.0 million cap but under the $200.4 million luxury tax, with Garland ($42.2 million) and Ingram ($40.0 million) the two biggest numbers on the books. The draft-pick cupboard is thin: swaps in 2027, 2028 and 2030, a 2027 second owed to Utah, a 2029 second owed to San Antonio, and the 2029 and 2030 firsts forfeited outright. The front office remains interim, with John Gibson as governor and CEO and Trent Redden running basketball operations. Ingram has returned to on-court work after a partially torn Achilles, with no return date set, and Bradley Beal was downgraded to Out with a knee and leg issue. The roster has also churned in October, with Miye Oni and Nathan Mensah signing on and Blake Wesley among four players cut.
Identity and rivalries118 words
This is a team that has spent most of its history scrapping for relevance in a city that belongs to the Lakers, and that crosstown rivalry still carries the weight of every Clippers season, win or lose. The franchise has never reached the NBA Finals, a fact that colors how fans measure every roster built around it, from Lob City to the Paul George-Kawhi Leonard years. With Ingram and Garland now the faces of the team, the Clippers are trying to write a new identity after the departures of George, Westbrook and Leonard, and the stakes in the Lakers series remain the same as always: bragging rights in a city that still sees them as the other team.
Home, owners and numbers84 words
The Clippers play at Intuit Dome, their home since the 2024-25 season, after decades at Crypto.com Arena and, long before that, Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Steve Ballmer owns the team, though he was suspended from all league and team activities for one year as part of the league's penalties. Dennis J. Wong holds a minority stake. The franchise's history runs through Lob City stars like Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and the Paul George-Kawhi Leonard era that followed.
What they are chasing91 words
The Clippers are chasing a first trip to the NBA Finals, a bar the franchise has never cleared, while trying to establish Ingram and Garland as a foundation after the Kawhi Leonard salary-cap-circumvention case cost them their 2029 and 2030 first-round picks outright and fines, suspensions and a five-year compliance program. Fans argue over how quickly Ingram's Achilles allows him back on the floor and what a roster already thin on future draft capital can realistically build toward with Beal also out and an interim front office still running the show.
The long view538 words
The Los Angeles Clippers began in 1970 as an NBA expansion team, the Buffalo Braves, playing at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium alongside the NHL's Sabres. Under coach Jack Ramsay and center Bob McAdoo, who won three straight scoring titles and the 1974–75 MVP award, the Braves made three playoff appearances, losing to the Boston Celtics in 1974 and 1976 and the Washington Bullets in 1975. A scheduling conflict with the Canisius Golden Griffins over the arena, plus new owner John Y. Brown Jr.'s roster teardown, pushed the franchise toward a swap: Brown traded ownership with Celtics owner Irv Levin in 1978, and Levin moved the team to San Diego, renaming it the Clippers after the sailing ships in San Diego Bay. Gene Shue coached a roster built around Randy Smith, Swen Nater, World B. Free, and later Bill Walton, but the team missed the playoffs in all six San Diego seasons.
In 1981, Donald Sterling bought the club for $12.5 million. His tenure brought chaos: a $10,000 NBA fine for guaranteeing losses to secure a shot at drafting Ralph Sampson, unpaid hotel and travel bills, and an NBA committee recommendation that his ownership be terminated before he negotiated to keep it. In 1984, Sterling moved the team to Los Angeles without league approval, drawing a $25 million fine later reduced to $6 million once the NBA dropped its lawsuit in 1987. The Clippers opened at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, going 31–51 in their first LA season under Jim Lynam. Injuries to Derek Smith, Norm Nixon, and Marques Johnson defined the "Clipper Triangle" years, culminating in a 12–70 finish in 1987, then the second-worst record in NBA history. Elgin Baylor joined that year as general manager. A 1989 trade brought in Ron Harper, and with draftees Ken Norman, Danny Manning, Charles Smith, and Loy Vaught, the team became a playoff contender into the early 1990s, with Larry Brown taking over as coach in 1991–92.
The Clippers moved into the Staples Center (later Crypto.com Arena) in downtown Los Angeles in 1999, sharing the building with the Lakers, the WNBA's Sparks, and the NHL's Kings. Over their first 27 seasons in Los Angeles the team reached the postseason just four times and won only a single playoff round, cementing a reputation as one of pro sports' perennial losers next to the far more successful Lakers.
The 2010s brought the franchise's clearest identity shift. The "Lob City" core of Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan, and Chris Paul carried the Clippers to six straight playoff appearances from 2012 to 2017 and back-to-back division titles in 2013 and 2014, both franchise firsts. Even so, the team kept losing in the Conference Semifinals and did not reach the conference finals until 2021, still with no NBA Finals appearance to date, making them the oldest North American pro franchise never to play in a championship game.
Beginning with the 2024–25 season, the Clippers left Crypto.com Arena for the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California. That same year, the NBA G League's Ontario Clippers relocated and took the San Diego Clippers name and a modernized three-sails logo, tying the franchise's history back to its 1978 San Diego roots. Fans know the team as "the Clips" or "LAC."