To Live and Die in LA
Checking the Pulse of the LA Clippers
By Matt Stroup
10/9/03
At the end of the 2001-2002 NBA regular season, I wrote an article about one of the season's great stories: one of basketball's perennial dishtowels was suddenly on the rise. That year saw the Clippers go from the league's biggest joke to a true jewel for east coast hoops junkies -- a west coast team playing an exciting brand of basketball late at night. If you had NBA League Pass that season, you watched the Clippers every night they were on (or at least you did if you were me).
Though I couldn't get enough of the Clippers that season, the article that I wrote praising them could best be described as an ode with an asterisk. Underlying that entire season was an impending sense of doom. With Scrooge McDuck (notoriously stingy owner Donald Sterling) writing the checks, the Clippers were sure to lose a slew of their young and promising players to pending free agency. There was no way Sterling would keep them all, and some question as to whether he would keep any of them.
Before that dismantling could even happen, though, the Good Ship Clipper took on a whole boatload of water in 2002-2003. And by "water" I mean bad karma. This team just had an odor about it; an aura of bad luck and crappy chemistry reminiscent of...well, the Clippers. Sadly, all throughout last year, the 2001-2002 dream season (in which the Clippers went 39-43 and made a strong playoff push before fizzling out) looked more and more like a fluke.
Now, as training camp 2003-2004 begins, we revisit the Clippers, looking back at their dream deferred and wondering if they'll ever fulfill the promise of just 2 seasons ago.
Flatlining
There's no telling exactly why things went so badly for the Clips last season, although there are clearly some factors and events that can be singled out. The first of those took place in the preseason, when they dealt then budding star (now gigantic dud who will probably still be a star but was just too young to fulfill expectations) Darius Miles to the Cavs for then elite point guard Andre Miller. At the time, it looked like a smart move for the Clips. Even though they were trading one of the most wildly entertaining players in the league in Miles, they were dealing from strength, as Miles was one of many super-athletic forwards with Oh My God! talent and Will He Fulfill It? potential. In return, they were getting the one thing they seemed to need in Miller; a solid, steady playmaker who could seemingly create assists out of nothing -- after all, he had just led the league with 10.9 assists per game playing for the lowly Cavs. With this guy at the helm, you had to think everyone was going to get better.
However, if you know anything about the Clippers, it should probably come as no surprise that everyone got worse. From the very start of the season, Miller played boring, flat and uninspired basketball, dropping off in virtually every statistical category even though he was playing with much better players in LA, which may have been, above all else, his problem. In Cleveland, Miller was the show. He had the ball in his hands every possession until he either shot it himself or passed it off for a potential assist. In LA, Miller had Lamar Odom (when healthy) handling the ball as well as a capable backup stealing minutes in Marko Jaric.
At the same time, guard Quentin Richardson and center Michael Olowokandi, two players who had made huge leaps the year before, seemingly followed Miller's lead. After being one of the most creative players in the league and one of the most explosive sixth men in '01-'02, Richardson was wild, erratic and trigger-happy last season. Olowokandi, after looking like he was finally becoming a very good post player in '01-'02, was so horrible last year that I'm actually pretty embarrassed that I even suggested he was improving when I wrote about the Clippers before. Yes, he's big, talented and sometimes puts up good stats, which is why he'll always have a contract, but he can't shoot (42.7% last year), won't pass out of the post, and isn't good enough to command a double team, so when it goes in there, you know a wild shot of some kind is going up.
All in all, the Miles-Miller trade was a total disaster, which is a huge indictment of Miller's play, considering that Miles had a terrible season for the Cavs (he wasn't even good enough to hold down a regular spot for a team that went 17-65, though, in his defense, he was hurt).
Somebody Call a Medic
Other than the uninspired play typified by Miller, the Clippers' main problem last year was injury, though it's not an excuse Miller can use -- with 80 games played, he was the only player on the team to suit up for more than 70 games last year. Elton Brand, undoubtedly the Clips' best player last year and the only guy who played his ass off every night he was in there, missed 20 games and seemed to be playing hurt through many more. The other pillars of the team -- Odom, Corey Maggette, Richardson and Olowokandi -- missed 33, 18, 23 and 46 games respectively.
Actually, considering how many games his teammates missed, Miller's poor stats are almost understandable. The only person he consistently suited up with was Sean Rooks, who last saw the plus side of 6 ppg during my senior year in high school. I'm sure Andre was real pumped about kicking it out to Sean for 17-foot jumpers time and again. If you're a point guard, you've gotta love centers who shoot 42 percent.
No matter whose fault it was, the undeniable truth was there. As the final horn sounded on the 2002-2003 season, the Clippers' record sat at 27-55. Only a year removed from 2001-2002, the hope and promise of that season was almost impossible to remember.
Still Breathing
Fortunately, as this season begins, not all appears to be lost. If my previous article was an ode with an asterisk, then this is a eulogy with a footnote. The Clippers may not be dead yet.
True, they are no longer the most exciting team in the league, not by a long shot. Their seemingly endless store of dynamic players has been sapped -- Miles is now running alongside some kid named LeBron in Cleveland and Odom has made the best career move he could possibly make by joining Pat Riley in Miami (we'll finally find out if he's going to be a star).
While not having those two forever changes the face of the franchise, some of the Clippers' other losses can definitely be considered positives. Olowokandi is off to Minnesota and, though he's a talented scorer, he showed last year that he's a dog; one of those guys who is capable of putting up good numbers, but if you watch him play, he's clearly hurting the team more than he's helping it. Miller, not dead weight by a long stretch (though he played like it last year) is gone to Denver, where he will probably resume the upward career path he was on before bludgeoning himself in the foot last season. You could easily make a case that the Clippers should have kept Miller and that he was sure to bounce back this year in LA, but something about him wasn't right last year, and it seemed to be contagious.
While they have lost Miles, Odom, Miller and Olowokandi, the players they've brought in for this season aren't exactly ready to play franchise savior. Their biggest offseason acquisitions were Peja Drobnjak (who is a fun player to watch primarily by virtue of the fact that he looks like he spends his spare time hoisting boulders and foraging for keep in the wild) and Eddie House, the subject of a "Free Eddie" campaign by Miami fans last year who thought that the explosive House, who once scored 61 points in a game for Arizona State, was being shackled up by Pat Riley's offense. Both of these players are entertaining -- Drobnjak because of his neanderthalic appearance and slightly wreckless style of play, and House, for, well, his wreckless style of play -- but neither is going to make a big enough difference.
Then, of course, there's the fact that the Clips have Olden "Officer" Polynice in camp, the only known NBA player to have impersonated a law enforcement official. I don't even know whether this is good karma, bad karma or what.
And now I'm completely derailed. I can only think about Olden Polynice driving around wearing aviator shades with his fake police badge, pretending like he's on the verge of cracking an important case. What was I even talking about before? It's going to take all of my concentration to refocus. Here goes...
Hanging on by a Toenail
When Corey Maggette was a rookie, back in '99-'00, I remember hearing one of his Orlando Magic teammates tell a story about the then 20-year old Maggette going to get a pedicure and getting an infection on his toe, which caused him to miss time. The teammate, after telling that story, said something along the lines of, "Yeah, he's just a kid; he doesn't have a clue what's going on, but he's got so much talent and athleticism it's unbelievable."
Now, going into his fifth NBA season, Maggette appears to have found the aforementioned clue. Though he's been in the league 4 years and seems like he's been around forever, it's very easy to forget that he's only 23, and his game is just starting to come together.
Last season, in the midst of all the turmoil in LA, he and Brand were really the Clippers' only reliable options on offense. Always a terrifying leaper and a ferocious athlete, Maggette improved his jump shot dramatically last year, and it paid off as he scored a career-high 16.8 ppg. He's getting bigger, stronger, and more explosive as each season passes, and as the 2003-2004 season approaches, he looks ready to go berserk. Along with Brand, he will give the Clippers two legitimate scoring options, both easily capable of topping 20 ppg.
At the same time, don't forget about the shady guy standing in the corner over there. You see him, that creepy guy with the half-grown beard, the greasy hair and the trench coat? That's Marko Jaric, the Clippers' new starting point guard, who looks like the kind of guy who would try to steal your girlfriend while you're buying him a drink.
In flashes last year, Jaric definitely showed signs that he can be a big time player -- during one set of back to back games in December, he dropped 18 points, 7 boards, 9 assists and 4 steals on Denver and then followed it up with 22 points, 6 steals and 5 threes the next night in Phoenix -- but, overall, his season was something of a disappointment.
Regardless, there's an underlying sense about Jaric that he's a hustler, and I mean that in a good way. You just get the impression that this guy knows how to play ball. He's a gym rat; kind of like an uber-talented version of that annoying grad student baller you played against in college (remember that guy? Always in the right place at the right time, never missed a jump shot, pesky on defense, super competitive). That's Jaric. Now we're going to see what he can do with a full-time gig, and we're going to find out, above all else, what Maggette, Brand and Jaric can do together.
Signs of Life
Ultimately, the outlook for the 2003-2004 Clippers could be much worse. Though Odom and Miles (who, no matter what they go on to do, will always be Clippers in my mind) are gone, Sterling finally opened his vault to shell out the cash needed to keep rising star Maggette and steady cornerstone Brand, the two players who, along with Jaric, will determine this team's fate.
If Maggette can blossom into a dominant force (it says here he will), Brand's relentless style of play doesn't wear him down and Jaric can keep everyone happy, this team could be a big surprise. Remember what the Suns did last year with a young and inexperienced team? No one saw that coming, and the same thing could happen for the Clippers.
If all else goes wrong, at least we'll be entertained. Between Drobnjak doing his best Encino Man impersonation, Eddie House launching everything in sight, and Jaric showing up at Saturday afternoon games looking like he came directly from a nightclub, this incarnation of the Clippers will definitely be good television.
Meanwhile, in a remote corner of the city, a helpless victim cries out in the night, and a call goes out from the police dispatcher. Olden Polynice, listening in on his radio, happens to be in the vicinity, and quickly springs into action. This, he knows, is his chance to prove he can be a great cop...
One thing is for certain: the Clippers are very much alive.
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