Generous of me, yes, to allow the Clippers to have Chris Paul — since the trade is already made and I’m not the erratic and capricious commissioner of the NBA who can step in and quash a deal.
Lakers fans will be agitated about this trade, for two reasons: That Chris Paul will not be wearing […]

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I love relegation. I knew about it, of course, long before I got off the plane in Abu Dhabi in the heavily Euro-influenced UAE. But seeing it in action … brings home what fun it is and how the NBA, the NFL, MLB could all be improved.
Not that I expect this ever could happen. But […]

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I was thinking about the Beijing Olympics, and realized that the U.S. men’s basketball team had zero Clippers on it. But then, neither did the Vancouver Olympics. Have any Clippers on the U.S. team.
Though clipper ships presumably sailed to Vancouver, but not Beijing, it being too far from the ocean. Hong Kong? Sure. But not […]

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That didn’t take long.
Blake Griffin didn’t even make it to Opening Night before he was struck down … by the Clippers Curse.
(Cue creepy music, imagine the late Vincent Price reading this to you aloud.)
Turns out the Clippers’ blue-chip rookie forward, the top pick in the NBA draft … has a broken knee cap … and […]

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This is one of those rules that Shouldn’t Have to Be Made. But when you’ve got self-important athletes unwilling to recognize common-sense boundaries … it’s amazing what you have to get down in black and white.
The NBA has banned the use of Twitter and other “social media” during a period that extends from 45 minutes […]

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ESPN the Magazine has done a long piece on Donald Sterling, owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, by far the least successful franchise of the four “major” North American sports.
The profile is interesting on several levels, but these are the two that struck me while reading it:

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“Absolutely didn’t see this one coming” is the phrase that jumps to mind.
The Clippers quit on this season months ago, and the idea that they could defeat the Boston Celtics, defending NBA champions anytime, anywhere seemed preposterous.
And then the final score came in: Clippers 93, Celtics 91. I almost fell out of my Eames chair. […]

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It was one of those classic “too good to be true” stories. It involved the Clippers. So of course it was. Too good to be true.
A week after come to terms with Baron Davis, adding a blue-chip point guard to the Clippers lineup, the team apparently has lost its best interior player, Elton Brand, to […]

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And I thought the Clippers were going to return to anonymity for another decade or three. The Lakers keep Kobe Bryant, get Pau Gasol, go to the NBA Finals … and the Clippers (23-59) fall apart.
We’ve seen this before, and it’s always been a lengthy process. Lakers get cranked up, Clippers fade, see you in […]

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