Stan Sheriff Center: Preseason home for the Los Angeles Lakers, now the Clippers

They haven’t been here since 2015, replaced by the new kids in town.

Even though their stars didn’t play, the guys who for decades were the other NBA team based in Southern California played the Houston Rockets last week in front of a full house at the Stan Sheriff Center. The on-campus arena at the University of Hawaii used to be the domain of the Los Angeles Lakers.

Los Angeles Clippers still doesn’t sound right … they had that nickname in their previous city because it harbored sailing ships. But the same can be said of the Lakers, whose monicker made more sense before they moved west from Minnesota, the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.”

The SSC is the arena of 10,000 seats, and they’re usually all filled when NBA teams play exhibition games there.

The Lakers have held preseason camp in Hawaii 13 times in the past 31 years. The bookends marked the final seasons of two all-time greats: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1988 and Kobe Bryant in 2015.

Manoa also hosted Magic Johnson (like Jabbar, for practices at rustic Klum Gym and games at Blaisdell Arena), Shaquille O’Neal, and a lot of everyone and everything else Showtime has had to offer over the past four decades.

The biggest NBA buzz at the SSC was generated in 2003, when Kobe and Shaq were joined on the roster by Karl Malone and Gary Payton. (The Lakers bolstered their lineup after failing to win the NBA championship for the first time in four seasons, losing to the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference finals. The added star power the next year didn’t work; Detroit beat L.A. in the 2004 Finals.)

Bryant, dealing with legal issues, did not play in a split of two preseason games with Golden State. But this Lakers appearance still comes in at No. 9 in the Star-Advertiser’s countdown of the ten most memorable sports events in the 25-year history of the Stan Sheriff Center.