October 12, 1979: Magic, Larry & the 3-Pointer Debut

October 12, 1979: The much-hyped opponents from the previous March's collegiate National Championship game make their NBA debuts. Earvin "Magic" Johnson scores 26 points, and veteran Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scores 29, and the Los Angeles Lakers need them all to defeat the San Diego Clippers, 103-102 at the San Diego Sports Arena. (That building still stands, under the name Pechanga Arena.) The Lakers needed all those points because Lloyd Free, later to rename himself World B. Free, scores 46 for the Clippers.

Larry Bird has a quieter debut, scoring 14 points, but the Boston Celtics have an easier game, overcoming 31 points from Moses Malone and defeating the Houston Rockets 114-106 at the Boston Garden.

This is also the day the 3-point field goal finally enters regular-season NBA play, after having previously been used in the American Basketball League (1961-63) and the American Basketball Association (1967-76). The Celtics' Chris Ford is the 1st player to attempt one, and the 1st player to make one. Larry goes on to make the trey a major part of his arsenal, while Magic doesn't, proving that he didn't really need it.

Another debut on this day is that of the Utah Jazz, after 5 seasons without making the Playoffs as the far more sensibly-named New Orleans Jazz. They get pounded 101-85, by the Portland Trail Blazers at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Portland.

Coach Frank Layden will eventually right the ship in Salt Lake City, and make them a consistent Playoff team and a model franchise, though they've never won a title. 

He would also remark that the team, and the Minneapolis Lakers, had names that made sense in their original cities, but not anymore. He suggested that they switch names, as "Los Angeles Jazz" and "Utah Lakers" both made much more sense.

The arrivals of Magic and Larry are said to have "saved the NBA." This is nonsense. The league already had Kareem, and Julius "Dr. J" Erving, and Bill Walton, and plenty of other great players.

Times change. Today's kids only know Magic, and Michael Jordan, as team owners. They know Larry, and Jerry West, as team executives. They know Dr. J, and Walton, and Shaquille O'Neal, and Charles Barkley, and Walt Frazier as broadcasters. They know Patrick Ewing and Isiah Thomas as coaches. They know Kareem as something of a curmudgeon. And they have no idea that Wilt Chamberlain would have eaten LeBron James.

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October 12, 1979 was a Friday. There were 6 other games in the NBA on this tipoff night:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Atlanta Hawks, 121-1014 at The Omni in Atlanta.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 102-95 at the Rutgers Athletic Center (now the Jersey Mike's Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Washington Bullets, 93-92 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Detroit Pistons beat the Indiana Pacers, 114-105 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* The Kansas City Kings beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 105-103 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 97-89 at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix.

The NHL was also early in its season, but only had 1 game on this night: The Vancouver Canucks beat the Detroit Red Wings, 3-1 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And Game 3 of the World Series was played at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. The Baltimore Orioles came from 3-0 down to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-4. Scott McGregor outpitched John Candelaria, and Benny Ayala hit a home run. But the Pirates would win the Series in 7 games.

April 14, 1984: The End of the San Diego Clippers

Norm Nixon (left) and Bill Walton

April 14, 1984: The San Diego Clippers play their last game. Despite falling far short of a Playoff berth with a 30-52 record, they go out on a high note, defeating the Utah Jazz, 146-128 at the San Diego Sports Arena. Norm Nixon scored 28 points, while Terry Cummings and James Donaldson each had 21. Hometown hero Bill Walton played through pain for 28 minutes, and scored 16.

The San Diego Sports Arena, now the Pechanga Arena

The team began in 1970, as the Buffalo Braves. But Western New York simply wasn't a big enough market to support 3 major league sports teams. What's more, the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium gave both the NHL's Buffalo Sabres and the basketball team of Canisius University scheduling priority over the Braves.

Braves owner Paul Snyder tried and failed to sell the team to an owner who would have moved them to Miami. He then sold them to John Y. Brown Jr., the Louisville-based fast food businessman who later got elected Governor of Kentucky. In 1978, Brown and Boston Celtics owner Irv Levin traded franchises. Levin said he did it because he was a Southern California native and wanted to move the Celtics to San Diego, and the NBA wouldn't let him move the team with the league's greatest pedigree. But they would let him move the Braves, and he did. (Brown sold the Celtics after only a year.)

San Diego had already lost an NBA franchise, with the Rockets starting in 1967 and moving to Houston in 1971; and an American Basketball Association franchise, with the team known first as the Conquistadors and then as the Sails failing. They also lost their World Hockey Association team, the San Diego Mariners, despite it making the Playoffs in all 3 of their seasons. They had almost lost baseball's Padres to Washington, D.C. in 1974, although, under the ownership of McDonald's boss Ray Kroc, they were now stable, as were the NFL's Chargers.

The Clippers had Braves star Randy Smith, and had acquired Kermit Washington and Lloyd Free, who changed his name to "World B. Free." But the team never got going. One player, Kevin Kunnert, said the Clippers had the "killer instinct of a field mouse." They went 43-39, missing a Playoff berth by 2 games.

They acquired San Diego native Bill Walton, who had fallen out with the management of the Portland Trail Blazers, but his injuries turned him from one of the greatest talents in the sport into one of its greatest letdowns. They kept missing the Playoffs.

In 1981, Levin sold the team to Los Angeles real estate developer Donald Sterling. he embarked on a county-wide marketing campaign featuring his smiling face on billboards and the backs of buses. The seminal ads read: "My Promise: I will make you proud of the Clippers."

He did not: They failed to make the Playoffs, and he immediately began trying to move the team up the Coast to Los Angeles, despite the success of the Los Angeles Lakers. In 1984, he did it. The NBA subsequently fined him $25 million. He sued the league for $100 million, but dropped the suit when the league agreed to decrease the fine to $6 million.

In L.A., Sterling as an individual and the Clippers as a franchise continued to embarrass themselves and the sport of basketball. Despite new rounds of expansion in the NBA in 1988-89, 1995 and 2004, and 4 team moves since -- the Kansas City Kings to Sacramento in 1985 and nearly to Seattle in 2013, the Vancouver Grizzlies to Memphis in 2001, the Charlotte Hornets to New Orleans in 2002, and the Seattle SuperSonics to the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008 -- San Diego has never again been seriously considered as the home of a moved or expansion NBA team.

But that's less because San Diego has a reputation for losing its teams, including the 2017 loss of the Chargers to Los Angeles, and more because the San Diego Sports Arena, which opened in 1966, and still stands, as the Pechanga Arena, has only 14,000 seats, and hardly any luxury boxes. As of April 14, 2022, it is the home of the San Diego Gulls of the American Hockey League. It has also hosted minor-league basketball, arena football, indoor soccer, professional lacrosse, roller hockey and team tennis.

UPDATE: The Clippers do not have a team Hall of Fame. Nor have they retired any numbers. The only banner they hang that honors any individual is for Ralph Lawler, who broadcast for them from 1978 to 2019, in San Diego and Los Angeles.

Through the 2025-26 season, there have been 9 players for the franchise who have been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. But only 2 of those played more than 2 years for the team: Forward Bob McAdoo played 4 seasons in Buffalo, and center Bill Walton was with them over a period of 6 years in San Diego and the 1st season in Los Angeles, even though injuries meant that he only played 169 games for the franchise -- just over 2 full seasons' worth of games.

McAdoo and guard Randy Smith were elected to the Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. Walton was elected to the San Diego Hall of Champions.

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April 14, 1984 was a Saturday. There were 5 other games in the NBA that day:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Philadelphia 76ers, 103-100 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Washington Bullets, 117-109 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Atlanta Hawks beat the Detroit Pistons, 115-107 at The Omni in Atlanta. Dominique Wilkins, "The Human Highlight Film," scored 35 points.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Indiana Pacers, 104-92 at the Milwaukee Exposition and Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA (now the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena).

* And the Kansas City Kings beat the Houston Rockets, 108-96 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs were underway, but no games were scheduled. The NFL was out of season, but there were 4 games played in the United States Football League (USFL):

* The Oklahoma Outlaws beat the Washington Federals, 20-16 at Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington.

* The San Antonio Gunslingers beat the Jacksonville Bulls, 20-0 at the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville.

* The Denver Gold beat the Pittsburgh Maulers, 31-21 at Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* And the Los Angeles Express beat the Memphis Showboats, 23-17 in overtime at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Mets lost to the Chicago Cubs, 6-2 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Dick Ruthven outpitched Tim Leary. Leon Durham hit a home run.

* The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Montreal Expos, 4-3 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Steve Carlton started for the Phils, but Larry Andersen turned out to be the winning pitcher. Mike Schmidt hit his 392nd career home run.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Baltimore Colts, 8-2 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Eddie Murray went 1-for-3 with a walk. Cal Ripken went 1-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the Seattle Mariners, 4-3 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Ron Washington, later to manage the Texas Rangers to 2 American League Pennants, hit a home run to win the game in the bottom of the 11th inning.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-5 at Busch Memorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-4 at Royals Stadium (now Kauffman Stadium) in Kansas City. Robin Yount went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Paul Molitor went 2-for-5 with an RBI. George Brett did not play.

* The Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 6-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Houston Astros beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-1 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the San Diego Padres, 5-1 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn went 2-for-4 with an RBI.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 8-4 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Terry Whitfield and Greg Brock hit home runs.

* The Oakland Athletics beat the California Angels, 4-3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Jim Essian hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th inning. It was 1 of only 33 home runs he would hit in his career as mostly a backup catcher. Rickey Henderson went 1-for-3 with a walk and a stolen base. Reggie Jackson went 0-for-4. Rod Carew did not play.

* The New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox were rained out at Yankee Stadium. The game was made up as part of a doubleheader on August 7. The ChiSox won the opener, 6-3. LaMarr Hoyt outpitched Jim Deshaies. Harold Baines and Greg Luzinski hit home runs. The Yanks won the nightcap, 7-0. Ron Guidry pitched a 4-hit shutout, striking out 13 and walking none. Dave Winfield and Bryan Dayett hit home runs. Don Mattingly did not play in either game.

* And the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers were also rained out, at Fenway Park in Boston. Lucky for the BoSox, because the Tigers ended up winning their 1st 9 games that season, and 35 of their 1st 40. This game was also made up as part of a doubleheader on August 7. The Red Sox won the 1st game, 12-7. The Tigers won the 2nd game, 7-5. Lance Parrish won it with a home run in the top of the 11th inning.

March 31, 1975: The End of the John Wooden UCLA Dynasty

March 31, 1975: The Final of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament is held at the San Diego Sports Arena. (It's now named the Pechanga Arena.)

The NCAA Tournament had varied from between 22 and 25 teams since 1953. For the 1974-75 season, due to the frustrations of teams unable to win the Conference Tournaments, and thus qualify for the NCAA Tournament, despite previously having exceptional seasons, the NCAA expanded the Tournament to 32 teams, and allowed teams that failed to win their conference in.

In the Mideast Regional Final, at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio, on March 22, Indiana, then undefeated at 31-0 and ranked Number 1 in the country, faced Number 5 Kentucky, who were 24-3, with 1 of their losses coming to Indiana in Bloomington. This time, Joe B. Hall's Wildcats beat Bobby Knight's Hoosiers, 92-90, and secure Kentucky's 1st berth in what would later be called "the Final Four" since losing the 1966 Final. This would be the only game that Indiana would lose between March 11, 1974 and December 1, 1976, a stretch over which they went 66-1.

The University of California at Los Angeles had won 7 straight titles, and 9 out of 10, under coach John Wooden, before losing in the 1974 Semifinal to North Carolina State. In 1974-75, the Bruins finished the regular season 23-3, losing only away to Stanford by 4 points, away to Notre Dame (again) by 6, and, in their only bad game of the season, away to Washington by 22.

At the time, the league then known as the Pacific-Eight Conference had no Conference Tournament, but UCLA easily won the regular-season title. The Bruins struggled in the NCAA Tournament: They needed overtime to beat Michigan, beat the University of Montana by only 3 points, beat Arizona State to get to the Final Four, and needed overtime to beat the University of Louisville, coached by Wooden's former assistant, Denny Crum.

After that Semifinal win over Louisville, Wooden announced his retirement: Win or lose, the Final against Kentucky would be his last game.

The San Diego Sports Arena,

now the Pechanga Arena

The game was tight. So were the Bruins, as if they were trying too hard to send Wooden out a winner. The lead changed hands several times in the 1st half, which ended with UCLA ahead, 43-40. Kentucky stayed close, and were within 76-75 with less than 7 minutes left.

Dave Meyers -- brother of UCLA women's star Ann Meyers -- was called for an offensive foul on a shot attempt during which he bumped into Grevey. Meyers yelled at referee Hank Nichols for this, and was assessed a technical foul. This led the normally mild-mannered Wooden to run onto the court, and call Nichols a "crook."

Maybe this shook the Wildcats up, because Kevin Grevey, their best player, missed all 3 free throws. Kentucky never recovered, and UCLA won, 92-85. Wooden and UCLA had their 10th National Championship, all within the last 12 years.

As with so many other great college coaches, Wooden cast a shadow that his successors found it difficult to get out of. The following year, Gene Bartow got UCLA back to the Final Four, but lost to Indiana, with Knight leading them to what remains the last undefeated season for an NCAA Division I men's basketball team.

In 1978, Hall led Kentucky to their 1st National Championship in 20 years, while Grevey helped the Washington Bullets win the NBA Championship. Under Larry Brown, UCLA got back to the Final in 1980, losing to Louisville and Wooden's former assistant Crum, who would win the National Championship again in 1986.

UCLA has won 1 National Championship without Wooden, in 1995, under Jim Harrick Sr. In 2006, Ben Howland took them to the Final, where they lost to Florida.

Of Wooden's '75 Bruins: Marques Johnson starred with the Milwaukee Bucks, becoming a 5-time NBA All-Star; Dave Meyers was his teammate on the Bucks; Andre McCarter played a season each with the Kansas City Kings and the Bullets; Ralph Drollinger played 1 season, the expansion season of the Dallas Mavericks, 1980-81; Brett Vroman, that same season, played 11 games with his home-State Utah Jazz, the extent of his NBA career, though he also played in Europe, mostly in Italy; Richard Washington, named the Tournament's Most Outstanding Player, played 6 seasons in the NBA, including 1 as a teammate of Johnson and Meyers, and another as a teammate of Drollinger; and Wilbert Olinde never played in the NBA, but starred in Germany's basketball league.

And then there was Gavin Smith. He transferred to the University of Hawaii, where he set the school's single-season scoring record, which still stands. He became a stuntman, an actor, and a film studio executive. In 2012, he disappeared after leaving a friend's house in the Los Angeles suburbs. Two years later, his remains were found, and a man was convicted of his murder.

John Wooden had been a star player at Purdue University in the early 1930s, before coaching at Indiana State (later the Alma Mater of Larry Bird) from 1946 to 1948, and then at UCLA until 1975. His career record was 664-162 -- including 335-22 from 1963 to 1975, for a percentage of .938.

He won National Championships in 1964, with Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich; 1965, with Goodrich; 1967 and 1968, with Lew Alcindor, who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar; 1969, with Kareem and Sidney Wicks; 1970 and 1971, with Wicks; 1972 and 1973, with Bill Walton and Keith Wilkes, who later changed his name to Jamaal Wilkes; and 1975, with Marques Johnson.

In 1972, Sports Illustrated split its Sportsman of the Year award for the 1st time, between Wooden and tennis star Billie Jean King. For King, it was a recognition of not just her performance in her sport, but her activism for it, including for female players to be paid as much as male players. For Wooden, who had won his 8th title, it seemed more like a lifetime achievement award.

It's worth noting that Wooden titled his autobiography They Call Me Coach. Even long after his retirement, his former players, even those who had gone into coaching themselves, still called him "Coach" rather than "John." It's also worth noting that Kareem only let 2 people continue to call him "Lewis": His father, Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor Sr.; and Wooden.

It's also worth noting that Wooden was just 64 when he retired, though he looked older. To put this in perspective: Dean Smith and Gary Williams each coached their last college game at 66, Bobby Knight and Jud Heathcote 67, Don Haskins 69, Roy Williams 70, Lute Olson 72, Denny Crum 74, Mike Krzyzewski and Larry Brown 75, Jim Calhoun 79, Rollie Massimino 83. As of March 31, 2022, Jim Boeheim and Tom Izzo are still coaching at 67, Rick Pitino at 69.

He was the 1st person elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame as both a player and a coach, the former in 1960 and the latter while still coaching in 1973. His success led to UCLA building the Edwin W. Pauley Pavilion in 1965. In 2003, the school named the playing surface the Nell and John Wooden Court. John insisted that, if he were going to be so honored, his late wife's name should go first. That same year, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died in 2010, 4 months short of his 100th birthday.

In 1995, Marques Johnson's son, Kris Johnson, won a National Championship at Duke. The Johnsons are 1 of 4 father-son pairs to win National Championships, along with Henry and Mike Bibby, Scott and Sean May, and Derek and Nolan Smith; and the only pair to both win for the same school.

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March 31, 1975 was a Monday. There were no games in the NBA. There were 2 in the American Basketball Association. The Kentucky Colonels beat the San Antonio Spurs, 103-89 at Freedom Hall in Louisville. Artis Gilmore had 36 pionts and grabbed 25 rebounds. And the Utah Stars beat the Virginia Squires, 103-97 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. Ron Boone scored 36 points.

Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were no games in the NHL. There were 2 in the World Hockey Association. The Winnipeg Jets beat the Indianapolis Racers, 4-1 at the Winnipeg Arena. And the San Diego Mariners beat the Edmonton Oilers, 5-2 at the brand-new Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.