Basketballs: July 2004 Archives

Loving an underdog can be such a rewarding thing. The victories don't feel hollow and when the victories come the pride cannot be contained when cheering for a lovable loser. To get to the few moments of euphoria one must endure a lot of disappointment. A lot of disappointment. I am a Los Angeles Clipper fan. I love the loserest losers of all time.

Consistently referred to as the worst franchise in all of professional sports with the worst owner in all of professional sports, The Los Angeles Clippers have never ever come close to success, but the last 5 or 6 years have been full of a lot of hope as so much young talent landed in the Clippers' lap: Lamar Odom, Darius Miles, Corey Maggette, Elton Brand, and Quentin Richardson. An overacheiving season in 02-03 brought so much hope to the 03-04 season (along with fact that owner Donald Sterling finally shelled out some money to hold onto Brand and Maggette), which was quickly dashed when team leader Elton Brand broke his leg in the first game of the season in Japan. A season wrought with injuries followed and they didn't perform anywhere near expectations, even though Maggette and Richardson both showed they could both be All Stars in the very near future.

This offseason brought more excitement as the Kobe Bryant free agency sweepstakes came down to the Clippers and their evil stepsisters, the Lakers. Kobe eventually signed with the Lakers after it looked like he would trade locker rooms in the Staples Center (which both the Lakers and Clippers call home). Just the thought of Kobe joining the Clippers gave the team so much legitimacy and made the fans drool, but yesterday saw another setback. The Clippers failed to match a free agency offer by the Pheonix Suns for restricted free agent Quentin Richardson. As a consolation and replacement they did trade for solid veteran shooting guard Kerry Kittles. Kittles will do a fine job, but has nowhere near the upside of Quentin Richardson, and it just feels sorta demoralizing...letting the young talent slip away again as they have done for years and years. Of course, the concept is that Kittles is only under contract for one more year and it will leave the Clippers with maximum cap room available for next offseason to sign a big name, BUT they had maximum cap room this year and have nothing to show for it (they did go after Kobe but didn't make a good attempt after anyone else). I'm afraid they will have another wasted season this year and they will be no more attractive for any free agent to sign with next year, even with all the money they could offer. They had this amazing young nuclues who were, surprisingly enough, proud to be Clippers, and the loss of Quentin Richardson breaks up this nucleus. It feels like a crushing blow to me.

I spent a few minutes this afternoon looking at their roster...it's not a pretty sight as it stands. Sure, Elton Brand, Maggette, and Kittles are all good players but there other two starters will be Marko Jaric and Chris Kaman, two guys who could be good one two but are not at the level where they should be starting for a quality NBA team. I will always love my Clippers, but I will be entering this season with much less optimism than in years past. Sometimes being a true fan = :(