Being a Clipper fan is not about rooting for a winning team.  It’s about hope.  Praying things will get better.  Thus to look back at this past decade, I present The Top 10 Most Hopeful Clipper Moments.  Of course, as you’ll see below, every time of hope… has been followed by disaster.
1.  The decade started off with a bang for Clipper fans.  Yes, Lamar Odom was drafted in 1999, but it was in January 2000 that he had his most productive month: 19.1 points, 9.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists on 47% shooting.  Other highlights from his rookie year?  He tied [...]

No sugar coating: we’ve had a sad start to the season due to injuries to two key players and disappointing loses.  However, while some view being a Clipper fan as a form of self-masochism (and not in that kinky fun way), really being a Clipper fan is all about hope.  About faith.  About believing things will get better.  We refuse to give up, and somehow we always believe that tomorrow will bring better days.  That if we gut it out, our day will come, and ohhh, then it will be all the sweeter (ie. see Red Sox; Winning World Series [...]

After stinking it up in the previous game, Baron came back last night determined to make amends.  Unfortunately, the rest of the Clippers came out determined to play crappy defense and do their best imitation of last year’s pitiful team.  Memphis, who earlier this week had only won one game but had lost eight, shot an astounding 54% against your LA Clippers.  Offensively, the Clippers were fine, they shot 47.6% which should be enough to win most games.  Their three-point shooting is still off, as they shot only 20% for the long ball.  The free-throw shooting was a pitiful 61% [...]

Last night the Clippers went up against a team, the New Orleans Hornets, that not only has been sucking all season, but that was also missing its MVP candidate, its motor, its sole consistent player this season: Chris Paul.  This is a team that is known for having a lack of depth.  It should’ve been a Clippers’ win.  Unfortunately no one remembered to tell LA that.  Or maybe the Clips were told that & thus they came out assuming they’d win.  That’d explain the lack of hustle.  As proof of that hustle-ness-less, look no further than these stats posted by [...]

The Clippers stand at 4-7 and they’ve had several disheartening losses that they could’ve/should’ve won.  It sucks, but the truth is that both the team and the coach keep taking steps in the right direction.  In the first of the last three games, the Clippers choked in the fourth quarter against Oklahoma City, highlighted by Chris Kaman driving under the basket so he had nothing available, then jumping in the air and passing it to Kevin Ollie.  It was painful.  Kaman got a lot of crap for that in the blogosphere, but c’mon he’s been the one reliable player all [...]

Mark Stein reports in  ESPN’s Weekend Dime:
One source plugged in to Clipperland insists owner Donald Sterling has already flirted seriously with the idea of dismissing Mike Dunleavy immediately, [...] despite the fact that Dunleavy still is owed $5 million next season on top of this season’s $5 million.
Doubts persist about Sterling’s willingness to let Dunleavy go with that much money left on his contract, but attendance is flagging, and the offseason addition of John Lucas as an assistant coach appears to give Sterling an easy and inexpensive option for an interim replacement with NBA head-coaching experience.
We have all assumed that [...]

To my surprise, the Clippers decided to hang on to Kareem Rush.  Now even though I dumped on Kareem’s D the other day, I’m actually not upset with this decision.  Truth is that after Steve Novak, Rush probably has the best 3-pt shot on the team.  And we need good outside shooters to space out the floor so Baron, Telfair, Gordon & Thornton can slash, while Kaman & (eventually) Griffin can go to work down low.  Kareem’s a much better defender than Novak, so it should be easier to get him out there on the floor.  Also, since he’s a [...]