This is the latest post for an ongoing media project — SoCal Sports History 101: The Prime Numbers from 00 to 99 that Uniformly, Uniquely and Unapologetically Reveal The Narrative of Our Region’s Athletic Heritage. Pick a number and highlight an athlete — person, place or thing — most obviously connected to it by fame and fortune, someone who isn’t so obvious, and then take a deeper dive into the most interesting story tied to it. It’s a combination of star power, achievement, longevity, notoriety, and, above all, what makes that athlete so Southern California. Quirkiness and notoriety factor in. And it should open itself to more discussion and debate — which is what sports is best at doing.
The most obvious choices for No. 00:
= Benoit Benjamin: Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers
= Brian Wilson: Los Angeles Dodgers
= Kevin Duckworth: Los Angeles Clippers
The most interesting story for No. 00:
Benoit Benjamin: Los Angeles Clippers center (1985-86 to 1990-91); Los Angeles Lakers center (1992-93)
Southern California map pinpoints:
Los Angeles (Sports Arena); Inglewood (Forum)
Double-digit zero, and Benoit Benjamin, live together in imperfect alliterative NBA harmony. And a good dose of infamy.
The player, and the number, have become a consequential representation of Los Angeles Clippers’ existence. It’s the visual evidence that Donald T. Sterling’s decision to escape the shackles of San Diego to seek even more fame and fortune in the area already dominated by the Los Angeles Lakers has seemed like a suicide mission from the day the Clipper ship, which originally left its dock in Buffalo, decided to find another new port of entry.
Both the franchise in general, and Benjamin in particular, seem to bank on the idea one can have a decent amount of talent and just show up to the party expecting to be embraced by a major global metropolitan city that has already celebrated years of success with another transplanted dance partner from Minnesota.
It just doesn’t work that way. It lacks a certain maturity for the sophistication of a basketball-knowledgeable L.A., in the eyes of critics and even passive observers. Their struggles and eventual failures were too predictable for anyone with forward thinking and a knowledge of hoops history.
Well, take a seat. We’ll try to explain.
In the 1985 NBA draft, Clippers GM Carl Sheer declared that this 7-foot junior center from Creighton, a native of Monroe, Louisiana named Lenard Benoit Benjamin, would be worth the value of their No. 3 overall draft pick in a free-choice selection process. He averaged 21.5 points and 14.5 rebounds for the Bluejays.
Benjamin described being the third-from-the-top choice as vindication from some of the criticism he received during his college career.
“Some people said I didn’t work hard,” said Benjamin, who wore No. 00 at Crieghton for coach Willis Reed. “The right people knew what I was doing.”
Yeah, sure. Creighton, by the way, lost its last five games in a 13-12 season, including its MVC tournament opener. They played two nationally ranked teams all season and were hammered in both — losing by 23 against No. 9 DePaul and by 14 against No. 15 Tulsa, which won the MVC. Wichita State senior Xavier McDaniel led the MVC in points and rebounds and was conference MVP.
Clippers coach Don Chaney, who took over the last 20-some games of the ’84-85 season for a 31-51 Pacific Division fifth-place team, must have felt as if he did something wrong seeing Benjamin fall into his lap.
Maybe the Clippers think tank was just sizing up all the available super-sized college players from the wrong end. Benjamin was there after New York took Patrick Ewing (that whole thing was somewhat suspect in how the ping-pong balls fell) and then Indiana was satisfied with taking Wayman Tisdale. After Benjamin, Chris Mullin went to Golden State and Karl Malone to Utah, where each continued to add to their eventual Basketball Hall of Fame resumes.
It’s the danger of making someone your center, and centerpiece, of a team with a Napoleonic complex.
Benjamin was four years removed from being named a McDonald’s High School American. That claim to fame for Big Ben may have led him to think it came with a lifetime supply of Big Macs. He ate his way out of being relative from the start.
Oh, and the Clippers made sure everyone knew his first name was pronounced “ben-OYT,” not “behn-WAH,” and their been-there, haven’t-done-that attitude seem to justify laying out a then-sizeable four-year, $3.5-million investment in his services starting with his rookie year.
Those first four seasons saw the Clippers go 32-50, 12-70, 17-65 and 21-61. No coincidence.
His mark on Clippers’ lore was trying to block it all out. He twice blocked a franchise record 10 shots in a game and remains their all-time leader in that category with 1,117 (or 2.8 per game).
He even had a career-best 16.4 points a game average in ’88-’89. That year, he had a career-high 34 points and career-high 23 rebounds – in the same game. Of course, it was a three-point loss to Charlotte, where Kurt Rambis was assigned to guard him that night.
Perhaps his greatest brush with fame was when when he just minding his business going after a rebound during a Clippers game in Dallas, and star teammate Marques Johnson ran into his stomach. Johnson suffered what would end up being a career-derailing neck injury.
Tough to stomach, indeed. And Benjamin didn’t even get the rebound.
“He (Marques) got the rebound and he turned to go up the court and he hit my stomach,” Benjamin said after the game. “When he was falling down, his neck was turned. As I looked down, I knew he was hurt.”
Thanks for the diagnosis, big man.
Before the 1987 season, the Los Angeles Times sent reporter Chris Baker to Monroe, La., to try to size him up in a story. It started this way:
Benoit Benjamin thought the young fan was going to ask for an autograph.
“Say, aren’t you Benoit Benjamin?” the youngster asked. “Don’t you play for the Clippers?
“You guys are awful!”
This was Benjamin’s team, as he was the center of attention. Bill Walton left after ’85, his only pro season back in L.A. after the team’s move from San Diego in 1984, and he would rather sit on the bench with the Boston Celtics to ride his pro career out. The Clippers had James Donaldson and Wallace Bryant as center pieces. Jamaal Wilkes, Norm Nixon and Marques Johnson had the name value.
But Benoit drew the bright spotlight.
Things got so bad for him during the Clippers’ 70-loss season, second worst in NBA history to that point, Benjamin said he wouldn’t leave his house except to go to games and practices. He would sit at home, staring at his giant fish tank. …
Baker continued:
Benjamin, 22, a flop in his first two seasons, said he’s had a change of heart and will have a new attitude this season.
His previous coach Chaney said Benjamin was “his own worst enemy. … And I don’t think he’s that dedicated. … If he weighs 250-245, then he’s ready to play. If not, then it’s the same old thing. I called one month last summer, and he said he was 245. He was 270 when he showed up at camp. If he said he weighs 245, you’d better take a scale with you. I’d like to see him get serious about the game and improve. If he was serious, he’d work out in the summer.”
The story noted how during that sophomore season, Benjamin missed planes, practices and meetings, once brought two left shoes to an exhibition game and made obscene gestures to heckling fans, including the first time he returned to L.A. to play for the visiting Seattle Sonics and the Clippers fans unloaded.
Even when he did show up on time for games, he was often missing in action.
But he enjoy showing off his new $18,000, 20-foot power boat to the Times’ reporter.
Almost halfway through 1990-’91, Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor, who arrived four seasons earlier, had a nice idea — get Seattle’s Olden Polynice, give him the No. 0, and send Double-B/Double-Zilch to the Emerald City. The Clippers also got first-round draft picks for 1991 and ’94 (which, even by Clippers standards, became spectacularly un-noteworthy — LeRon Ellis, the Mater Dei High-son of former Laker LeRoy Ellis, in ’91, and they traded away the ’94 pick to Orlando in a deal that netted them Stanley Roberts).
Benjamin, by that point, had been through five different Clippers head coaches and thousands of excuses for his missteps.
In a 2020 story about Clippers who wore particular numbers, someone at ClipsNation.com declared: “Benjamin was never an All-Star level player, but he was remarkably consistent in his Clippers tenure in particular, and perhaps some better franchise management could have been a core piece of a perennial playoff team.”
Consistently what? If Benjamin transposed the zeroes on his jersey, maybe it would have come out different?
The Lakers and GM Jerry West thought enough of Benjamin to ask that he be included in a February 1993 trade for their last 28 games when they sent Sam Perkins to Seattle, mostly to see if adding Doug Christie into their rotation could shake them of a sub-.500 record.
Two months later, Benjamin may have lasted long enough to get in the team photo, but he was eventually cropped out. New Jersey had its own misguided assessed of a big man, Sam Bowie, and Nets GM Willis Reed (yes, the same one who coached up Benjamin at Creighton) sent Bowie to L..A. and took Benjamin back, thinking he was of some use.
This is what they got:
When Benjamin played for the Nets, Yinka Dare from Nigeria was his teammate. They were warming up before a game against Minnesota. Dare noticed that Minnesota Timberwolves forward Christian Laettner was wearing a “C” on his uniform. He asked teammate Jayson Williams what that stood for.
“Caucasian,” said Williams.
Benjamin overheard what Williams said. After Dare went to the layup line, and remarked to Williams: “That Dare is really stupid. He thinks Caucasian begins with a ‘C’ instead of a ‘K.’”
The context
There is a sweet, revealing interview Benjamin did recently with KM Videos that is on their YouTube channel (above). Watch Benjamin explain why he was 17 minutes late to their scheduled discussion.
“Technical difficulties,” he said. “Now I’m on. Now what?”
He then gave his screen name as $$Benoit00 — explaining how he was given No. 00 in college and the pros because it was a tribute to another former Louisiana great, Robert Parrish.
Parish wore No. 00 at Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport during the mid-1970s. When he was drafted into the NBA, he took the number to Golden State and Boston and kept it for 21 pro seasons. It now hangs in the rafters alongside the Celtics’ other retired jerseys.
Perish the thought Benjamin thinks he’s in that stratosphere.
The legacy
In the court of law, Benjamin was quite a distinctively off-brand figure as well.
When his NBA days were over — at one point, the Lakers decided he might be serviceable and signed him as a free agent before the 1999 season, but he was dropped a month later to live out his days in Vancouver, Milwaukee, Toronto, Philadelphia and Cleveland — he had accumulated some $20 million in total salary. So Benjamin started playing overseas. He came back and found work with the Harlem Globetrotters in 2001 and ’02. On their actual team, not the touring Washington Generals.
That’s when things went weird even by Benjamin’s standards and non-practices.
Benjamin and four other Globetrotters were at Jason Williams’ house one night when an incident occurred that resulted in the shooting death of a limo chauffeur. Benjamin, testifying in the trial against Williams, stunned the courtroom by saying he saw Williams pull the trigger of the gun. Benjamin’s account contradicted defense claims the shotgun misfired without Williams pulling the trigger when he snapped its barrels closed Feb. 14, 2002.
“I didn’t expect that answer,” said chief prosecutor Steven Lember to the judge.
Really? After what Benjamin had once told Williams about how to spell “Caucasian”?
After his grueling testimony ended, Benjamin yelped “Yippee!” He walked by Williams and sarcastically said “Good luck, man,” before strolling out of the courtroom.
Williams was sentenced to five years in prison. You’re welcome.
As of 2025, the Clippers are the only NBA franchise not to retire a jersey. From its expansion year of 1970 in Buffalo as the Braves, to a San Diego relocation in 1978, and then to L.A. in 1984, it has featured players such as Hall of Famers Bob McAdoo (No. 11), a three-time league scoring champ and MVP. Plus Hall of Famer Bill Walton (No. 32). All Stars like World B. Free (No. 24), Blake Griffin (No. 32), and Kawhi Leonard (No. 2). Even easy-to-turn numbers-into-nicknames like CP3 (Chris Paul) or PG-13 (Paul George).
In the summer of 2025, the Clippers signed their newest candidate to start at center, Brook Lopez, who lived in Panorama City and Granada Hills before moving to Northern California in second grade. Lopez wore No. 11 for the Lakers in 2017-18 and would take No. 11 again in his SoCal return.
It was pointed out to him his new employers currently held the longest streak in the NBA of seasons with a winning record — 14.
(What was left out of that stat was that they’ve had that streak under three head coaches. In making the playoffs for 12 of those seasons, the Clippers flamed out in the first round seven times, including the last three in a row. They lost in the conference semifinals four more times, and they only reached the conference final once before losing there as a No. 4 seed in 2020-21 to Phoenix in six games. The other two above-.500 seasons were 42-40 in 2021-22, the year after the conference final march, and in 2017-18).
“It’s crazy to see, but it’s very cool,” Lopez told reporters. “Seeing the climb, the ascent, I’m a Cali boy. I grew up in the Valley in North Hollywood. Obviously, things were very different back then. And to see where the Clippers have come now, it’s just astonishing. It’s beautiful. I’m glad to be a part of it. And hopefully, I can help take them even further up.”
All things considered, it also wasted draft picks over the years with an attempt at perhaps adding some levity to the proceedings. Between 1979 and 1981, they actually drafted two athletes from San Diego who ended up in the Hall of Fame. Just not the Basketball Hall of Fame. In ’79, they took Mike Dodd out of San Diego State in the ninth round. He’s in several volleyball halls of fame. In 1981, they drafted Tony Gwynn from San Diego State (in the 10th round). He’s in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
All things considered, if the Clippers started at the bottom and worked their way up, retiring No. 00 for Benjamin, as well as other things, might be the most appropriate they do on many levels.
Who else wore No. 00 in SoCal sports history?
Make a case for:
Brian Wilson, Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher (2013 to 2014):
Southern California’s second most-famous Brian Wilson, after working for San Francisco, pitched in 79 games over two seasons, striking out 67 batters in 62 innings and collecting one save. He was very hairy, and scary, and used a lot of black beard dye. Even his baseball card says so.
Kevin Duckworth, Los Angeles Clippers center, 1996-97. After wearing it at Portland, Washington and Milwaukee, he brought it to L.A. for the last of his 11-year NBA career. He’s wasn’t worthy. He was the only other player aside from Benjamin to wear No. 00 in Clippers history. Note: Cal State Fullerton center Ozell “Hoppy” Jones wore No. 00 as a Titan from 1982 to 1984, but when he played three games for the Clippers in 1985-86, he was sporting No. 20.
Have you heard this one:
Aside from Benjamin, only one other Laker who purposely wore No. 00 – Calvin Garrett, who played in 41 games in 1983-84 and retired. There are three instances where Byron Scott (in 1989, James Worthy and Mychal Thompson (both in 1987) had to wear No. 00 during an emergency situation, because … the team misplaced their jersey? They misplaced their jersey? Thompson had just been traded to the Lakers from Portland on Feb. 14, and he played against Boston the next day wearing No. 00.
Still, it feels like this is a case where you are in high school, you were responsible for taking the jersey home to wash it and bring it back, and somehow lost it.
Anyone else worth nominating?
Also: If a dog makes it to the NFL, there is an official Chargers or Rams jersey awaiting:
Also: If a dog makes it to the MLS, there is an official Galaxy jersey awaiting:
Tom Hoffarth's The Drill: More Farther Off the Wall 
where is Benjamin now?
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