Philadelphia, PA (My Sportsbook) - It's easy to pick out the marquee franchises in the world of sport. The New York Yankees, Boston Celtics, Dallas Cowboys and Montreal Canadiens would probably top most lists.

But, how about the other end of the spectrum -- the seemingly always moribund clubs with the proverbial dark cloud always looming.

In the NBA, it's rather easy to pick out the league's doormat -- Donald Sterling's hapless Los Angles Clippers.

Whether its karma or just good ol' bad luck, the Clips' history is scarier than anything Stephen King ever came up with.

This horror movie started in the late 1970s when the Clippers were still a twinkle in Irv Levin's eye.

Levin, a California businessman, owned the Boston Celtics, while John Brown was at the helm of the Buffalo Braves. The Braves' poor play during their final two years in Western New York (30-52 in 1976-77 and 27-55 in 1977-78), along with poor season ticket sales had Brown thinking about greener pastures,

The NBA's general counsel at the time, David Stern, set up a meeting at the time between Brown and Levin and a trade of franchises was brokered. Not exactly a great deal for Levin, but he wanted to own an NBA team in his native state and the C's were obviously going nowhere.

NBA owners voted 21-1 to let the Braves relocate and Levin brought the club to sunny San Diego after the 1977-78 season...The Clippers were born.

Thirty years later, the team has mustered four postseason appearances and exactly one playoff series win.

Things actually started pretty well for the Clips in Cali. In the team's first season in San Diego, it posted a winning record, 43-39, under head coach Gene Shue. While that mark wasn't good enough for postseason play, it turned out to be the Clippers' last winning season for 13 years as the bad luck piled up.

In 1979-80 the Clippers brought in San Diego native Bill Walton, a brilliant player who was just two years removed from an NBA championship with the Portland Trail Blazers. But foot injuries had crippled Walton by that point, and San Diego finished with a record of 37-45.

The 1981-82 season brought more changes to the Clipper franchise as Levin sold the team to Los Angeles-area real estate developer and attorney Donald Sterling for $12.5 million.

The Clippers' poor play in their final years in San Diego resulted in the team averaging under 5,000 fans per game. Sterling subsequently lobbied the NBA to relocate the team to his native Los Angeles. In 1984, the NBA agreed, and the Clippers moved to Hollywood.

The Clips were largely pathetic for the next seven seasons, including a 12-70 record in the 1986-87 season, at the time the second-worst single-season record in NBA history.

There have been a few spikes here and there since. Larry Brown had the team heading in the right direction in the early '90s but the nomadic one got antsy and packed his bags long before anything real was accomplished. Meanwhile, the team's current coach and general manager, Mike Dunleavy, joined the Clippers in 2003 and led the team to that lone playoff success in 2006.

Since then, thanks to a series of injuries, the black cloud has reemerged over the Clippers and the team is a miserable 17-54 this season.

For many years Sterling was the villain in this novel. Widely criticized for his tight hold over the purse strings and unwillingness to invest in his own team, Sterling seemed to have an epiphany when Dunleavy arrived.

In 2003, the longtime owner opened up his checkbook to sign Elton Brand to the biggest contract in franchise history; a six-year, $82 million deal. He also matched a $45 million dollar offer sheet Corey Maggette received from the Utah Jazz and brought in a few higher-priced veterans free agents, like Cuttino Mobley in 2005 and Tim Thomas in 2006 and Baron Davis this past offseason Sterling also spent $50 million to build a state-of-the-art practice facility in Los Angeles' Playa Del Rey neighborhood.

None of it has worked. Brand and Maggette are long gone and the Clips are bottom-feeders again.

Those who know Sterling say he is intent on winning a championship in the city of Los Angeles, despite long being the red-headed stepchild to the far more popular and successful Lakers.

To that end, Sterling tried to pull off his boldest move to date over the past couple of weeks, offering his general manager job to Lakers legend Jerry West.

Sources close to West, who is the silhouetted player depicted in the NBA logo, told Los Angeles' KNBC that the Hall of Famer had indeed been approached by the Clippers about becoming the team's next general manager.

Not surprisingly, "The Logo" said no.

Just another loss for the Clippers.

Were you expecting anything else?