Staples Center 'Hallway Series' and co-tenancy friction

Staples Center opened in 1999 as a shared home for the Lakers and the then-Clippers, placing both franchises under one roof and fueling frequent comparisons. As the Clippers' on-court profile grew in the 2010s—particularly during the Lob City era—coverage of the Lakers–Clippers matchup began framing regular-season games as a 'Hallway Series' because teams literally passed each other in the arena corridors and shared many facilities. Media accounts documented disputes over locker-room branding, floor logos, shared scheduling priorities and the optics of being the secondary tenant in a building historically associated with the Lakers' championship legacy [6][11]. ESPN and other outlets explicitly wrote that "If the Staples co-tenants didn't have a rivalry before [the game], they have one now," a synthesis referring to specific charged games that pushed the matchup into rivalry conversations [6]. Co-tenancy continued to shape both franchise narratives until the Clippers' privately financed Intuit Dome project moved the Clippers into a separate, team-owned venue in 2024, changing the physical geography of the rivalry [8][4].

Shared tenancy made the teams' rivalry inherently local and symbolic: the Lakers' established championship history and the Clippers' emergence under new ownership created competing claims to Los Angeles basketball identity inside the same building. Discussions about locker-room assignments, lobby treatment and arena signage amplified perceptions of unequal status and made regular-season games feel like contests over public and institutional recognition, not only standings. As long as the teams cohabited Staples Center/Crypto.com Arena, those logistical and symbolic disputes remained central to rivalry narratives [6][11].

The co-tenancy era culminated with the Clippers' Intuit Dome project and move in 2024, which franchise owner Steve Ballmer described as an effort to "build a home that is our home" and to avoid playing "in anybody's shadow"—comments made in coverage of the Intuit Dome and arena planning [8]. The move physically separated the teams and shifted many rivalry flashpoints from arena logistics to on-court results and franchise-level branding in separate buildings, but decades of co-tenancy left a legacy of stories and moments that continue to be referenced in Lakers–Clippers coverage [6][8].