11/24/2023 0 Comments Clippers intuit dome![]() On Friday, the team held a pep rally at the corner of Century Boulevard near Prairie Avenue and announced a 23-year naming rights partnership with Intuit, the Silicon Valley-based software company known for making TurboTax, for more than $500 million, according to CNBC. And, when construction is complete on the Intuit Dome across the street in 2024, it will be home to the Clippers, too. The city that was long the home of the Lakers before they joined the Clippers and NHL’s Kings at Staples Center in 1999 now is home turf for the NFL’s Rams and Chargers at SoFi Stadium. “Inglewood is the sports entertainment capital of the United States.” “Inglewood is the capital of Clipper Nation,” he said. Just before Friday’s festive groundbreaking ceremony wrapped up, Inglewood Mayor James T. Jerry West tells the people why it’s important the Clippers have their own arena. ![]() And the building will help in a competitive way.” “But you’re gonna be attracted by a team that’s gonna be capable of winning, and capable of winning at the highest level – and this is what team wants most. “You’re gonna want to come back again to see every amenity in the arena,” West said. He said the acquisition of scoring wing Norman Powell – who arrived last week with Robert Covington in a trade that sent Eric Bledsoe, Justise Winslow, Keon Johnson and a 2025 second-round pick to Portland – will strengthen the Clippers whenever Leonard and George return.Īnd West suggested the Clippers will try to acquire another significant player who “will really make a difference going into next year” as they focus on their other construction project: Putting together a “really fun … and very competitive team” to take the stage in the new arena. West acknowledged that this season – difficult for most teams, all of whom have had multiple players sidelined in accordance with COVID-19 health and safety protocols – has been especially so for the Clippers, who have remained competitive and stubbornly a part of the play-in picture in the Western Conference even without their “two top dogs.” The Clippers have played without injured All-Star Kawhi Leonard all season as he recovers from July surgery to repair a torn right anterior cruciate ligament, and they’ve played without fellow All-Star Paul George since Christmas, when the team said it was shelving him indefinitely while he recovered from a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. ![]() “The Clippers have been close a lot and we’re hopeful that maybe, over the summer, some good things will happen to us and we can put another piece together and have two of the premier players in basketball back healthy.” “You get to win championships by the players you bring here, how they fit in to the puzzle of assembling a team that’s capable every night of winning – and more importantly, winning big games,” he said, with an eye on the not-too-distant future. Jerry West, the Hall of Famer who has worked as a Clippers consultant since 2017, was on hand Tuesday to talk about the project and all the ways it will benefit the organization – and to swap jerseys with Inglewood mayor James T. Indeed, behind him was a massive work site, 35 feet deep, where, in a few years, the team’s training facility and business offices all will be located – as well as the 18,000-seat basketball arena that Diaz promised would be the “most raucous and rollicking” of its kind. “That means we’ve completed our excavation.” “This week we’re bottoming out,” Alex Diaz, the Intuit Dome’s chief operating officer who is overseeing operations planning, said during Wednesday’s news conference at the construction site. ![]() If it’s a milestone few days for the city, it’s also a big one for the arena project – which, the team hopes, will eliminate the competitive disadvantage that comes with playing at Arena, where the Clippers’ co-tenants, the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings, have always had the higher priority in regard to scheduling. The Clippers invited media over Wednesday afternoon to check in on the progress of the $1.8 billion, privately funded arena that is scheduled to open in fall of 2024 in Inglewood at Century Boulevard near Prairie Avenue – about a mile from where the NFL’s Rams and Cincinnati Bengals will play in Super Bowl LVI on Sunday. INGLEWOOD - As members of the Clippers’ front office presumably worked the phones behind the scenes before the NBA’s pending trade deadline (Thursday, noon PT), other members of the organization donned hard hats and fluorescent vests to show off all the work accomplished almost five months into construction on the Intuit Dome. ![]()
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