When Lamar Odom was last a Los Angeles Clipper, he described it as a version of “basketball hell” and plotted his escape at the first whiff of free agency. Hell, purgatory or simply a terrible franchise, the Clippers were a team that good players avoided like they might an open wound, lest losing set in like an infection.
So who better than Odom to quantify the difference a decade makes as the “other” NBA team in Los Angeles heads to the playoffs as a deep, talented veteran club with legitimate championship aspirations? He earned two title rings with the Los Angeles Lakers and might win a third with the Clippers—surely a feat that would never be matched—after returning by way of a trade this past summer.
“Everything,” was Odom’s one-word answer for how things had changed with the Clippers since the four-year sentence he served from 1999–2003. “Great players, great people, great coaching, from the top to the bottom. Guys with contracts who are going to be here, who are happy to be here and are focused on changing the tradition.”
Right. The tradition. It’s a tradition rich in everything except championships. Or even winning seasons.
In 2000, Sports Illustrated did a study to determine the worst franchise in professional sports. It remains the only standings where the Clippers have ever finished first. At the time, their cumulative winning percentage was .348. They had never even won a division title and they had finished last in 12 of their 22 years of existence.
While the second half of the ensuing decade has shown marked improvement—hey, they made the playoffs in 2005–06 and recorded the only series win in Clippers history—what’s going on now is almost unfathomable. Forget basketball hell: In Chris Paul’s precision and Blake Griffin’s power the Clippers are at times otherworldly, as their 17-game winning streak earlier this season would attest.
Not only have the Clippers recorded their first 50-win season in franchise history and locked down home-court advantage for the first time thanks to their first Pacific Division title, they’ve even garnered the respect of the gilded Lakers, who have always been too busy polishing their 16 championship rings to pay attention to their Staples Center neighbours. The Clippers cruised to a 4–0 record against their hallway rivals on the season with an average margin of victory of 13 points. “They have a lot of talent,” Kobe Bryant said after one loss earlier this season. “They have a lot of depth and they have a lot of shot-makers who can alter the momentum and alter it pretty quickly. You really have to home in on each guy as they come in the game.”
The Clippers have star power that rivals the Lakers or anyone else in the NBA, but it’s what they’ve surrounded the likes of Paul and Griffin with that makes them the real NBA title contender in L.A., now and in the foreseeable future. The team led the league this season in minutes played off the bench, and their second unit was first among its peers in defensive efficiency and second in offensive efficiency. Anchored by Eric Bledsoe and bolstered by Jamal Crawford, Matt Barnes, Ronny Turiaf and Grant Hill, it’s a group that’s better than a lot of starting units the Clippers have had in their grim history.
How much have the team’s fortunes turned? When 40-year-old Hill was trying to find the perfect place to put a ring on his 18-year career, he spurned overtures from the Lakers and buddy Steve Nash. The idea of him opting to run with the Clips when he was a free agent leaving Detroit in 2000 or even when he signed with Phoenix in 2007 is laughable, but the prospects of the Clippers emerging from the war of attrition that promises to be the Western Conference playoffs is a serious matter.
“The perception of the Clippers is one thing,” says Hill, “but it’s been first class here and I’ve enjoyed it. Things have changed in a short amount of time. The organization’s expectations have increased.”
Or as Odom—once a Clipper, then a Laker and now happily a Clipper again—put it: “The difference between us and the Lakers now is they’re trying to keep a tradition going,” he said. “We’re trying to start one.”
Pull that off and the Clippers would have a slice of basketball heaven to call their own.
