Clippers History of Slow Starts: Why Ball Security Can Change the 2026-27 Season

Written by christopher martinez

By Clipper Nation Insider (@ClipNationIns) | Oct. 31, 2026

The Clippers franchise has one of the worst track records in NBA history: a .428 all-time winning percentage, 29th of 30 franchises, with 34 losing seasons in 56 completed years. Slow starts have been a reliable warning sign. In 16 previous seasons that began 1-4 or worse, the franchise never made the playoffs. The 2026-27 team is 1-4 after a 127-101 loss at Minnesota on Friday, but its biggest problem is fixable: it leads the NBA in turnovers at 21.8 per game, and opponents are scoring 30.6 points per game off those giveaways.

How bad has the Clippers franchise been historically?

Basketball-Reference's franchise index lists the Buffalo Braves, San Diego Clippers and Los Angeles Clippers at 1,936-2,592 all time (.428) through the first four games of this season. Among the 30 active franchises, only Minnesota (.421) has a lower all-time winning percentage. The franchise has 19 playoff appearances and no championships.

Across 56 completed seasons (1970-71 through 2025-26), the breakdown is:

  • 34 losing seasons, 21 winning seasons and one .500 season (41-41 in 1992-93)
  • 11 seasons with 60 or more losses
  • The worst season: 12-70 (.146) in 1986-87. The lockout-shortened 1998-99 team went 9-41 (.180), and 1999-00 finished 15-67 (.183).

The droughts are what define the franchise's reputation. After the Braves reached the East semifinals in 1976, the franchise missed the playoffs 15 straight seasons (1976-77 through 1990-91). It then missed eight straight from 1997-98 through 2004-05 and five straight from 2006-07 through 2010-11.

Why do the Lob City and Ty Lue eras look so different?

The split is stark. In the 41 seasons from 1970-71 through 2010-11, the franchise went 1,207-2,123 (.362), posted 34 losing seasons and made the playoffs seven times. In the 15 seasons since 2011-12, it is 728-466 (.610) with 12 playoff trips and zero losing seasons.

Even that run had a ceiling. The 2020-21 team, Lue's first as head coach, is the only one in franchise history to reach a conference final, losing in the 2021 Western Conference finals. It took the franchise 51 seasons to reach its first conference final.

So the modern Clippers have been a winning organization. The franchise as a whole has not.

How do Clippers seasons that start 1-4 end?

We pulled the first five games of every season from Basketball-Reference's game logs (Buffalo, San Diego and Los Angeles). The results are blunt.

  • The franchise has started 1-4 or worse in 16 of 56 completed seasons, including four 0-5 starts (1982-83, 1994-95, 1998-99 and 2008-09).
  • None of those 16 teams made the playoffs.
  • Only two finished above .500: the 1978-79 San Diego Clippers (43-39) and the 2021-22 Clippers (42-40, lost in the play-in).
  • Combined, those 16 teams won 31.5 percent of their games.

The flip side matters too. The 25 franchise seasons that started 3-2 or better produced 15 playoff teams. A hot start is not a guarantee, though. The 1985-86 Clippers opened 5-0 and finished 32-50.

League-wide history is less bleak. Per mcubed.net's playoff-odds-by-record tables (1947 through 2026), teams that started 1-4 made the playoffs 28.5 percent of the time (76 of 267). Recent examples: the 2025-26 Raptors, Magic and Suns all started 1-4 and still made the postseason. A 1-4 start is a hole, not a verdict, and this is the 17th time the franchise has dug it.

How much are turnovers costing the Clippers in 2026-27?

The numbers below come from ESPN box scores for the Clippers' first five games and for all 81 regular-season NBA games completed through Oct. 30.

  • Turnovers: The Clippers have 109 player turnovers (21.8 per game), the most in the league. They came into Minnesota at 23.0 per game. The league average is 15.6. Counting team turnovers, the Clippers have 112 (22.4 per game) against a league average of 16.3.
  • Turnover rate: Using Basketball-Reference's turnover-percentage formula (TOV / (FGA + 0.44 x FTA + TOV)), the Clippers are giving the ball away on roughly 19.7 percent of their possessions. The league rate is about 14.0 percent.
  • Points conceded: Opponents have scored 153 points off Clippers turnovers (30.6 per game). The league average is 19.1. That is about 11.5 extra points per night.
  • Net damage: The Clippers have scored 107 points off opponent turnovers (21.4 per game). The net is minus-9.2 per game. Their overall scoring margin is minus-6.4 per game (minus-32 over five games). The turnover gap alone is larger than the team's entire point differential.
  • Transition: Opponents are averaging 18.4 fast-break points per game against the Clippers. The league average is 14.9.

The game-by-game split tells the same story:

GameResultLAC turnovers (incl. team)Opp. points off TOs
vs SACW 121-961823
at LALL 117-1252633
at OKCL 101-1082638
vs LALL 87-1032431
at MINL 101-1271828

In their three games with 24 or more turnovers, the Clippers are 0-3 with an average margin of minus-10.3. In the two games with 18, they are 1-1. Fewer turnovers do not fix everything. Minnesota shot 18 of 43 from three, won the paint 62-42 and won by 26 on a night the Clippers had 18 turnovers, which Minnesota turned into 28 points.

For historical scale, the most turnovers any NBA team averaged over a full season in each of the last three seasons was 15.7 (Utah, 2023-24), 17.2 (Utah, 2024-25) and 17.3 (Portland, 2025-26), per Basketball-Reference. Basketball-Reference's record for a full season is 24.52 per game by the 1976-77 Denver Nuggets. Second on that list is this franchise: the 1972-73 Buffalo Braves at 24.40.

Do turnovers really decide NBA games?

Turnovers matter, though they are not the only thing that does. Dean Oliver's "Four Factors," as summarized by Basketball-Reference, weight turnovers at about 25 percent of what wins games. Only shooting (40 percent) is weighted higher.

Our calculation from Basketball-Reference team data found a clear negative correlation between offensive turnover rate and wins:

  • 2024-25: -0.74
  • 2025-26: -0.49
  • 2023-24: -0.51

The best teams protect the ball. The 68-14 Thunder had the league's lowest turnover rate in 2024-25 (10.3 percent). In 2025-26, Oklahoma City, Boston and Denver had the three lowest rates (11.2, 11.2 and 11.5 percent).

This season's small sample points the same way. In the 73 games without a tie in turnovers, the team with fewer turnovers has won 43 (59 percent).

The Clippers themselves were not a sloppy team last year. In 2025-26 they averaged 14.3 turnovers per game (13.2 percent of possessions), close to the league average of 14.5. That makes this start look like an outlier, not an identity.

What changes if the Clippers cut turnovers?

Here are six concrete levers, with the numbers behind each.

  1. Get Darius Garland back to his career norm. Garland has 28 turnovers in five games (5.6 per game, ESPN). His career average is 3.0 per game over 431 games, and he averaged 2.5 in 2024-25 (Basketball-Reference). Just getting back to 3.0 removes about 2.6 giveaways a night. He is still creating (31 assists), so the fix is fewer forced passes into crowds, not less playmaking.

  2. Simplify Keaton Wagler's diet. The No. 5 pick has 14 turnovers in 132 minutes (2.8 per game). Garland and Wagler together account for 42 of the team's 109 player turnovers (38.5 percent). More catch-and-shoot and second-side attacks, and fewer primary pick-and-roll reps against set defenses, would protect the rookie while he learns NBA help angles.

  3. Clean up the big-man touches. Isaiah Jackson has 11 turnovers in 108 minutes, and Brook Lopez has 7 in 113. For bigs, that usually means short-roll decisions and handoffs in traffic. Lopez as a pick-and-pop spacer, and Jackson finishing at the rim rather than making plays on the move, cuts the hardest reads out of their game.

  4. Stop the live-ball giveaways. Opponents score 30.6 points off Clippers turnovers and 18.4 fast-break points per game, both well above league average (19.1 and 14.9). Dead-ball turnovers let the defense set. Live-ball steals become layups. Fewer cross-court skip passes and lazy entry passes against long, switching defenses (OKC turned 26 Clippers turnovers into 38 points) is the fastest way to stop the bleeding.

  5. Lean on the low-mistake connectors. Derrick Jones Jr. has 5 turnovers in 145 minutes, and Kobe Sanders has 6 in 109. Running more possessions through quick-decision players and fewer through multiple dribble handoffs keeps the ball moving without the risk.

  6. Set a hard number: 16 or fewer. The league average is 16.3 total turnovers per game. Cutting from 22.4 to that line removes about six giveaways per game. At the 1.37 points per turnover opponents have scored this season (153 points on 112 turnovers), that is roughly eight points of opponent scoring a night. Eight points is more than the Clippers' minus-6.4 average margin.

Bottom line

History says a 1-4 Clippers start is a bad omen: 16 times before, zero playoff trips. But those teams were mostly bad by talent. This one has a specific, measurable leak. The Clippers lead the league in turnovers and give up 11.5 more points off turnovers per game than the league average. Last season, this franchise turned it over at a league-average rate. If Lue's group gets back near 16 a night, starting Sunday at Golden State (5:30 p.m. PT), the history of slow starts does not have to repeat.

Sources

christopher martinez
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