Inglewood mayor James Butts, left, gives Clippers executive Jerry West a Rams jersey with his name on it on Wednesday during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West speaks to reporters during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West speaks to reporters during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
The Wall, where fans will be able to watch Clippers games unobstructed, is marked as construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Alex Diaz, left, Chief Operating Officer of the Intuit Dome, along with Inglewood mayor James Butts, center, and Clippers executive Jerry West hold up football jerseys during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West, front right, tours the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West stands where the center of the court will be during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the site where the Clippers’ Intuit Dome is being built, on Wednesday in Inglewood. The east end of the arena will include a spot called “The Wall” (at right), 51 uninterrupted rows of seats that include standing rail seating and a dedicated supporter’s section. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West speaks to reporters during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West speaks to reporters during a tour of the Inglewood construction site of the team’s future home arena, the Intuit Dome. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Construction crews work at the Inglewood construction site of the Clippers’ future home arena, the Intuit Dome, on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)
Clippers executive Jerry West, left, along with Inglewood Mayor James Butts, right, speaks during a first look at construction of the NBA’s Los Angeles Clippers future home, the Intuit Dome which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2024 in Inglewood on Wednesday, February 9, 2022. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
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.
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.
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 Crypto.com Arena, where the Clippers’ co-tenants, the Lakers and the NHL’s Kings, have always had the higher priority in regard to scheduling.
“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. “That means we’ve completed our excavation.”
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.
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. Butts.
“There’s something exciting about going to see big events,” West said. “People are here, coming from all over, to see the Super Bowl, and people will flock here to see what the arena is really like. It’s up to the Clippers, our organization, to produce the kind of teams that make people come back every night.”
The arena, West said, is “a piece.”
“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. “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.”
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.
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.”
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.
And 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.
“You’re gonna want to come back again to see every amenity in the arena,” West said. “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. And the building will help in a competitive way.”
Jerry West tells the people why it’s important the Clippers have their own arena. pic.twitter.com/50UIN0AQuJ
