PLAYA VISTA, Calif. -- The Los Angeles Clippers have won the Pacific Division the past two seasons but will wait until they win the NBA championship before hanging any kind of banner at Staples Center.
While most NBA teams recognize division championships with a banner inside their arena before their season opener, the Clippers are in the unique position of sharing their home arena with 16-time NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers.
Last season, the Clippers began hiding the Lakers' championship banners and retired jerseys behind giant posters of Clippers players during their home games .
This offseason, the team decided against hanging their division banners at Staples Center and instead hung them in their training facility, overlooking their practice courts.
Clippers coach Doc Rivers wants his team to be proud of winning back-to-back division titles but said he looks forward to taking them down and putting up a "real banner" next year.
"We have no history," Rivers said Tuesday. "You might as well start parading something. It's nothing deeper than that. I don't love them. I hope someday we can remove them all and put the real banners up but right now we have to start from somewhere. I think anything that associates yourself with winning anything in this organization is important."
Some players didn't even notice the division championship banners at the practice facility, while others simply shrugged their shoulders at the sight of them, hoping to celebrate a more important banner they can actually hang at Staples Center.
"They look cool but honestly I never really look up there and think about it," Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. "I never say, 'Ah, yes, we did that.' Like we've said for the past several years, we want more than that. It's cool, but it's not something where I would bring someone in for a tour and walk them in front of the banners. No."