Lakers' play-in victory leads to NBA history for four California teams

The third-seeded Sacramento Kings have been the most pleasant surprise all season long and will face the sixth-seeded Golden State Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, beginning on Saturday. Despite losing Paul George to an injury late in the campaign, the Los Angeles Clippers have earned the No. 5 seed and will play against the fourth-seeded Phoenix Suns starting on Sunday.

With the win over the Timberwolves, the Lakers grabbed the No. 7 seed and will take on the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies, beginning on Sunday.

The Lakers and Warriors have both been in California for over six decades, as the former moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles starting in the 1960-61 season and the latter relocated from Philadelphia to San Francisco ahead of the 1962-63 campaign. After starting as the Buffalo Braves, the Clippers started in California in San Diego in 1978, while the Kings didn't move from Kansas City to Sacramento until 1985.

Though the Kings and Lakers both made the postseason during the former's first season in Sacramento, the Clippers and Warriors didn't qualify.

The main players in California's surprising run of not having all four teams in the same playoffs have been the Clippers and Kings. After Sacramento made the postseason in 1986, they didn't qualify again until 1996, though that was a year that both the Clippers and Warriors didn't make it.

Behind the likes of Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic and Vlade Divac, the Kings were in the playoffs every year from 1998 through 2006, though Golden State went on a lengthy run between the 1994-95 and 2005-06 campaigns where they weren't in the postseason field.

After not having made the playoffs since 2006, Sacramento finally broke the longest active postseason drought in the four major North American sports this spring.

During the Kings stretch of ineptitude, the Clippers made six straight postseasons from 2011-17 and three more from 2018-2021, the Lakers added their 15th, 16th and 17th championships and the Warriors have won four titles since 2015 alone.