Where are the Clippers sailing to?

It's not easy being a Clippers fan. If you believe/believed that the Red Sox were cursed, then it probably wouldn't be too hard to convince you that the Clippers are cursed too. Their history is long and un-illustrious with occasional moments of success followed by stretches of enormous suck-titude. But their time will come eventually, wont it? Every team's time comes eventually...right?

Back in 2000, with my brief cricket career having just ended due to injury and burnout, I turned to basketball full time. I had stopped following basketball following Jordan's second retirement and I now found myself without a team to support. Because I had not yet lived nor even considered living in the US I was not tied to the "normal" rules of hometown favouritism. Eventually I settled on 4 teams. The 76ers, the Timberwolves, the Mavericks and the Clippers. Allen Iverson and Kevin Garnett were possibly the easiest people in the world to root for and the Mavericks were easily the most exciting team in the league.

The Clippers however, they had real potential. They had everything I thought a young, up-and-coming basketball team needed. Quicksilver ball wizards (Keyon Dooling), imposing big men (Michael Olowokandi and later, Elton Brand), high-flying swingmen (Darius Miles and Corey Maggette), Dead-eye shooters (Quentin Richardson) and Lamar Odom, who seemed capable of doing everything his teammates did, and then some. There were flashes of brilliance and the promise of long-term dominance. Here was a team with all the pieces in place. They were young but they would grow together, learn together, win together. I was convinced that they would be the most powerful force in the league in the new millenium.

Of course, this didn't happen. Olowokandi was a bust, Dooling and Miles were injury magnets, Richardson was solid, but always attracted the "toxic to locker-rooms" label. And Odom. We shall probably never know what is wrong with Odom.

The only player in that group who really worked out was Maggette. Maggette has had a fairly impressive NBA career. He's been a satisfyingly professional and occasionally electrifying player in LA. Which is why it stings a little that perhaps the only way for the Clippers to move forward now, is to let him go. To not re-sign him when he opts out of his contract in july. Without Maggette's contract on the books and with Brand apparently willing to take a pay-cut the Clippers have a serious chance at hooking Baron Davis which could make their line-up for next season look something like this.

PG - Baron Davis
SG - Cuttino Mobley
SF - Al Thornton
PF - Elton Brand
C - Chris Kaman
Bench - Brevin Knight, Eric Gordon, Tim Thomas, DeAndre Jordan (even though he's the ultimate proto-Bynum right now)

That's a playoff-worthy team right? Barring injuries (which, considering Davis and Brand's histories, are more than likely) I don't see why this team wouldn't make some noise in the postseason. The bench is a little thin, but Knight is a solid backup PG and Eric Gordon looks like he'd be perfect doing what that other Gordon fellow in Chicago does. All they need are some last-minute veteran big-man free agents and they're set.

Maggette's leaving LA will be the end of an era in my eyes, but it might be the beginning of a new and better one too, for all parties concerned. That's why I'm holding on to my Clippers banner for just a little while longer.