LA Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer initially was content to play at Staples Center -- in the same building as the Los Angeles Lakers and the NHL's Los Angeles Kings -- when he bought the franchise for $2 billion in 2014.
But within a year, Ballmer said he realized the Clippers needed to build their own stadium if they wanted to build their own "identity."
"We needed to say, 'We're our own guys. We don't play in the same place as the other guys. We're going to have our own identity,'" Ballmer told ESPN in a wide-ranging interview in advance of Friday's groundbreaking of the Clippers new arena in Inglewood.