I think the early predictions were even higher than 2 bil
I wonder what happened? The other bids were much lower:
On Thursday, Ballmer outbid two groups, one led by media mogul David Geffen that offered $1.6bn and included TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey and Oracle chief executive, Larry Ellison, a source close to the process told Reuters. A group of Los Angeles investors also bid $1.2bn for the team. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/30/steve-ballmer-buys-donald-sterling-los-angeles-clippers-nba?CMP=twt_gu
Sounds like the auction fell apart when Ballmer jumped up to 2 bil. You can sometimes do that at an auction -- jump the price quickly and make people consider whether they really want to go there.
Also possible that there are other problems that made other high rollers bow out. They use 2 arenas, so maybe that's an issue.