PLAYA VISTA — Ivica Zubac has been doing some recruiting on the side.

No, not the type that could get the young center in trouble for tampering. But when the opportunity has arisen, Zubac has been trying to tap into his former team’s fan base, encouraging those folks to come see what his new team has to offer.

“A bunch of fans have come up to me and they say, ‘Why did we trade you? The Lakers front office did the biggest mistake,’” Zubac said Tuesday before the Clippers practiced at their training facility in Playa Vista. “Everyone’s like, ‘We miss you.’ And I always say, ‘I’m on a better team now. You don’t have to be sad for me.’ And I always make sure to tell them, ‘Check our game out if you want to see good basketball.’

“I always make sure to tell them, ‘If you want to watch playoff basketball, we’re at Staples,’ ” he added. “So it’s up to them, but I’m always gonna keep trying. People got this bad image about Clippers, like Clippers did something bad. But the thing is, the Clippers never did something bad, they’re just another team in L.A.”

Zubac understands why it might not be the easiest sell – at least for the uninitiated.

“I was taught to hate Clippers, you know, since I was with the Lakers,” he said. “So I never liked Clippers before. But since coming over here, it’s been amazing. The team, the franchise, the organization is like a family, a big family, everyone’s so close and it’s been awesome.”

He refrained from directly comparing the “cultures” of the respective organizations, suggesting that such a nebulous concept is hard to quantify and that he didn’t want to be misunderstood.

But the Clippers went an NBA-best 13-2 in March and became just the fourth team in history to win more than 45 games without a current or former All-Star on the roster, and winning speaks loudly on its own.

“In my two and a half years with the Lakers, I didn’t win much games,” Zubac said. “So winning all these games, it feels great. It got me looking differently at basketball. I don’t care about personal stats or whatever. Winning is the most important thing.”

Zubac has contributed to the Clippers’ success since arriving in a deal for Mike Muscala at the Feb. 7 trade deadline. In 22 games, those personal stats he said he’s stopped caring about have improved: He’s averaging nine points and 7.5 rebounds in 19.7 minutes per game.

“(It) seems like Lakers fans miss me and they regret the trade,” Zubac said. “And Clippers fans are just happy to have me.”

Those Clippers fans have been letting Doc Rivers hear it too, the coach said.

“I get it all the time, ‘This is my favorite team ever,’ ” said Rivers, who suggested it was the hard-working nature of this year’s squad that’s been especially appealing to the public, including the fan who approached him at a game this weekend. Related Articles NBA, WNBA players dismayed by lack of charges in Breonna Taylor case

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“(He) walks up to me and says, ‘I’ve been here for 30 years’ – and I couldn’t do the math to know if he was telling the truth or not – ‘and this is my favorite team, by far,’ ” Rivers said. “He kept saying, ‘by far.’

“… maybe because he just wanted to tell me something, but I think it’s fun.”

HARRELL VS. HOUSTON

The Clippers met Houston twice in the first five games of the season and not again since Oct. 26, when Montrezl Harrell dropped 30 points (then a career high) against the team that drafted him. The Clippers’ 133-113 victory was their largest margin of victory ever on the road against the Rockets, who played that game without MVP candidate James Harden.

Harrell – who is shooting 61.7 percent for the NBA’s fifth-best field goal percentage – also had a lot to do with the 115-112 victory in this season’s first matchup Oct. 21, scoring 17 points and spurring a fourth-quarter rally.