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Paul Lewis Snyder Sr. (born c. 1938) is a Buffalo, New York businessman and former owner of the Buffalo Braves basketball team. [1]
Snyder was born and raised in Mansfield, Pennsylvania, and first attended Alfred University before transferring to the University at Buffalo. He was on the football and wrestling teams in college. [2]
He founded the Freezer Queen frozen food company in Buffalo in 1958 [3] and founded the Darien Lake theme park after purchasing 500 acres (2.0 km2) of land in Genesee County, New York, in 1964, owning the resort and slowly developing it into a major amusement park until he sold the resort in 1983. He also briefly operated a (now demolished) Industrial Park located on the southeastern grounds of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport in the late 1980s. Snyder owned the Buffalo Hyatt Regency in the 1990s and opened the renowned E.B. Green's Steakhouse within the hotel.
In 1971, Snyder purchased the Buffalo Braves, which was an expansion team in the 1970-1971 NBA season, from the original hedge fund managers who had secured the expansion franchise. He sold the team in 1977, unable to compete with the much more successful Buffalo Sabres, who also debuted in the National Hockey League in 1970, or with the local college basketball teams, who were largely hostile toward professional basketball in Buffalo and managed to prevent Snyder from securing home games at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. The franchise later moved to San Diego (in a complicated swap with the Boston Celtics), then to Los Angeles, where it plays as the Los Angeles Clippers. [4]
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The Los Angeles Clippers are an American professional basketball team based in the Greater Los Angeles area. The Clippers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, as of the 2024–25 NBA season. Previously, the Clippers played their home games at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles from 1999 to 2024, which they had shared with NBA's Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL).
The San Diego Conquistadors were a professional basketball team based in San Diego, California, that competed in the American Basketball Association (ABA). The "Q's", as they were popularly known, played from 1972 to 1975. As the Sails, they played an incomplete season only, beginning the 1975–1976 season but folding after only 11 games with 3 wins and 8 losses.
The NBA G League, or simply the G League, is the minor league organization of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The league was founded in 2001 as the National Basketball Development League (NBDL), renamed the NBA Development League in 2005. It received its present name in 2017 under a deal with Gatorade, becoming the first U.S. professional sports league named for an advertiser.
The Buffalo Braves were an American professional basketball team based in Buffalo, New York. The Braves competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. In 1978, owner John Y. Brown Jr. swapped franchises with then-Boston Celtics owner Irv Levin, who then moved the team to San Diego, where it was renamed the San Diego Clippers. The franchise relocated to Los Angeles in 1984, becoming the Los Angeles Clippers.
Randolph Smith was an American professional basketball player who set the NBA record for consecutive games played. From 1972 to 1982, Smith played in every regular season game, en route to a then-record of 906 straight games. In college, he was a Division II All-American basketball player, soccer player and track athlete. He was born in Bellport, New York.
The 1971 NBA draft was the 25th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on March 29 and 30, 1971, before the 1971–72 season. In this draft, 17 NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players. A player who had finished his four-year college eligibility was eligible for selection. If a player left college early, he would not be eligible for selection until his college class graduated. The first two picks in the draft belonged to the teams that finished last in each conference, with the order determined by a coin flip. The Cleveland Cavaliers won the coin flip and were awarded the first overall pick, while the Portland Trail Blazers were awarded the second pick. The remaining first-round picks and the subsequent rounds were assigned to teams in reverse order of their win–loss record in the previous season. Prior to the start of the season, the San Diego Rockets and the San Francisco Warriors relocated to Houston, Texas, and Oakland, California, and became the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors respectively. The draft consisted of 19 rounds comprising the selection of 237 players. The league also hosted a supplemental hardship draft on September 20, 1971, for college underclassmen who wished to join the league.
The 1976–77 NBA season was the Braves seventh season in the NBA. The Braves were purchased by John Y. Brown, Jr., the former owner of the Kentucky Colonels in the now defunct American Basketball Association for $6.2 million. As part of an agreement with the Braves' former owner, Paul Snyder, Brown would give Snyder money received in player deals to reduce the purchase price. The sell-off began shortly after the season, as the Braves sold newly acquired Moses Malone. Malone was acquired in a trade with the Portland Trail Blazers after the ABA dispersal draft. Malone was now off to the Houston Rockets. The selling of players continued into the season as Bob McAdoo was sold to the New York Knicks. While the deals helped Brown pay virtually nothing for the franchise, it turned a promising franchise into a rebuilding one. Attendance fell off as the Braves finished in 4th place with a 30–52 record. The only spotlight was rookie Adrian Dantley, who captured Rookie of the Year honors with 20.3 points per game. However Dantley himself was traded following the season to the Indiana Pacers for Billy Knight.
The 1970 NBA expansion draft was the fifth expansion draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on May 11, 1970, so that the newly founded Buffalo Braves, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Portland Trail Blazers could acquire players for the 1970–71 season. Buffalo, Cleveland, and Portland were awarded the expansion teams on February 6, 1970. Houston was also awarded a franchise, but the group backing the team was unable to come up with the US$750,000 down payment on the US$3.7 million entrance fee that was required before the 1970 NBA draft. The Braves later underwent two relocations, moving to San Diego in 1978 and changing their name from the Braves to the Clippers, and then relocating to Los Angeles in 1984. They are currently known as the Los Angeles Clippers.
Leonard Bloom is a former sports and entertainment owner and real estate developer in California.
Kim Galen Hughes is an American former basketball player and coach. He played professional basketball in the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) with the New York / New Jersey Nets, Denver Nuggets, and Milwaukee Bucks between 1975 and 1981. Hughes served as the interim head coach for the Los Angeles Clippers for 33 games in 2010. On July 4, 2015, he was fired from his position as an assistant coach with the Portland Trail Blazers.
Irving H. Levin was an American film producer and business executive with the National General Corporation. He was also the owner of the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and San Diego Clippers.
Sports in San Diego includes major professional league teams, other highest-level professional league teams, minor league teams, and college athletics. San Diego hosts two teams of the major professional leagues, the San Diego Padres of Major League Baseball (MLB) and San Diego FC of Major League Soccer (MLS). The city is home to several universities whose teams compete in various NCAA Division I sports, most notably the San Diego State Aztecs. The Farmers Insurance Open, a professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour, is played annually at Torrey Pines Golf Course.
The Vancouver Grizzlies relocation to Memphis was a successful effort by the ownership group of the Vancouver Grizzlies to move the team from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada to Memphis, Tennessee, United States. The team began play as the Memphis Grizzlies in the 2001–02 season. It was the first of three National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise moves between 2001 and 2008, and the third of four major league teams to relocate from Canada to the United States between 1995 and 2005.
The 2012–13 Los Angeles Clippers season was the 43rd season of the franchise in the National Basketball Association (NBA), their 35th season in Southern California, and their 29th season in Los Angeles. During the offseason, the Clippers signed seven-time all-star Grant Hill and re-acquired Lamar Odom from the Dallas Mavericks. They improved on their 40–26 record from the previous season to finish 56–26, and they won their first Pacific Division title in franchise history. The title was clinched after defeating the Los Angeles Lakers on April 7, which also completed a season sweep of their crosstown rivals, 4–0. The franchise had not swept the Lakers since 1974–75, when the Clippers were the Buffalo Braves. It was also the first time in 20 years since 1992–93 that the Clippers won the season series against the Lakers. Although this was enough to net them home-court advantage in a playoff series for the first time since 2005–06, they lost their first-round series to the Memphis Grizzlies in six games. Following the season, Hill and Odom both retired and Chauncey Billups re-signed as a free agent with the Detroit Pistons, where he would spend his last season in.
The Lakers–Clippers rivalry is a National Basketball Association (NBA) rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers. The two Pacific Division teams both play their home games in the Greater Los Angeles area, thus inspiring their matchups to sometimes be called the "Battle of L.A." The Lakers originally relocated from Minneapolis in 1960, while the Clippers moved from San Diego in 1984 after previously moving to San Diego from Buffalo, New York, while going away from the original Buffalo Braves name in 1978. While Los Angeles fans have historically favored the Lakers, the Clippers have sold out or filled capacity for every home game at Staples Center since Feb. 2011 and entered the 2016–17 season with the sixth-longest active sellout streak in the NBA, which continued up until the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lakers have won 12 of their 17 NBA championships since moving to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Clippers have made the playoffs only eleven times since 1984 and remain arguably the least successful professional sports franchise in North America, and had never advanced past the second round of the playoffs until 2021. Some contended that the term rivalry was inaccurate due to the Lakers historical success and the Clippers historical lack of success. In the 2012–13 season, the Clippers won the first of six straight season series against the Lakers.
The National Basketball Association has undergone several rounds of expansion in the league's history, since it began play in 1946, to reach 30 teams. The most recent examples are the additions of the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat in 1988; the Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic in 1989; the Toronto Raptors and Vancouver Grizzlies in 1995 ; and the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004. In September 2024, Commissioner Adam Silver stated that the NBA would have discussions about a potential expansion of the league sometime during the 2024–25 season though not during the league's 2024 fall meetings, with an ESPN article stating that a number of factors including the potential sale of the Boston Celtics has led the league to go slower with the expansion process. In addition, the article stated that the potential expansion teams may begin play in the 2027–28 season should one occur.