Never been to a Clippers game before this. Twenty-six years of going to basketball games, but never had reason to go and see the Clippers at home until Thursday night, Game 6 of the second round of the playoffs. Been to basketball games in Seoul, in Barcelona, in Athens, at Chaminade in Hawaii, been to see every other team in the NBA, but never until this moment the Clippers. What would have been the point, other than to chronicle failure or make jokes?
"When I first came here in October," Clippers point guard Sam Cassell said before the crucial game against Phoenix, "I'd tell people, 'We're going to have a really good team this year.' And they'd look at me like I was crazy and say, 'But Sam, it's the Clippers.' I'd tell them, 'I've got nothing to do with the ghosts of the past. It says 'Cassell' on the back of my jersey.'
"And they'd say, 'But Sam, it's still the Clippers.' This is a helluva town to win in. But in Hollywood, they don't want nothing to do with losing. If you're losing, they don't want your money at the Shell station for gas. They'll tell you, 'No thanks. Why don't you go over the Amoco and buy your gas?' "
Of course, the Clippers now can buy their gas wherever they want, and the bandwagon has plenty of fuel as it has followed the team through the most successful run the franchise has had in Southern California.
When Bill Walton, who played for the Clippers for six years and broadcast the games for 13 years said, "This is the most important game in the history of the franchise," he knew exactly what he was talking about. The Clippers played their sixth home playoff game of this postseason Thursday night at Staples Center, with a packed house (minus the L.A. glamour quotient) looking on. Meanwhile, the more famous basketball tenants were nowhere to be found.
Walton left Coach John Wooden's house in Encino after breakfast Thursday morning and jumped on the 405 headed south to Marina del Rey when he saw something he'd never seen in all his years in Southern California. "There were cars," Walton said, "with Clippers Nation flags."
It's an emerging nation as the Clippers won 47 games and beat Denver in the first round of the playoffs. Until now, the Clippers were as big a loser as the Cubs or the football Cardinals. It has been that way since 1978, when the franchise moved from Buffalo to San Diego.
The Clippers had 12 straight losing seasons between 1980 and '91, and 23 losers in 26 seasons. In 1987, they were 12-70. They were both bad and unlucky. They got Walton in the prime of his life, at age 25, but a series of foot injuries prevented Walton from playing for the Clippers the way he had played, which is to say sublimely, for the Portland Trail Blazers, who won an NBA championship in 1977.
It's hard to believe that anybody could be more relieved over the Clippers' success than Walton, who called Thursday night's game for ESPN. Some folks date the Clippers' woes to Walton's joining the franchise as a free agent in 1979. That includes Walton, who said in a conversation before Game 6, "I'm responsible for the failure of the franchise in San Diego and for the struggles in Los Angeles. I couldn't get it done. I didn't get it done.
"It's a stain on my soul. We're not into excuses in this business; we're into results. I don't know what it's going to take get rid of the curse of Bill Walton."
Walton wasn't attempting to overstate the point, like he would intentionally embellish Clippers broadcasts over the years. (Personal aside: I loved Walton on those games. Much like Harry Caray doing the Cubs, Walton was the only reason to watch the Clippers all those years.) Walton was quite somber when he talked about the curse.
And there are some things that make you wonder if something or somebody cursed the Clippers. Twice in franchise history, the Clippers have had the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft. Once, the Clippers selected Danny Manning, one year after David Robinson was in the draft pool.
The next time the Clippers selected Michael Olowokandi, one year after Tim Duncan was in the draft pool. In the famous draft of 1984, the class that yielded Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Charles Barkley, the Clippers wound up with Lancaster Gordon.
However, there are far more prominent and professionally accomplished Clippers than one might think, and Walton rattled off their names without taking a breath. "Marques Johnson, Sidney Wicks, Norm Nixon, Keith Wilkes, Tom Chambers, World B. Free, Junior Bridgeman, James Donaldson, Lionel Hollins. . . . Don't forget Marvin Barnes," Walton said literally five minutes before tip-off. "They were all such good people, first-rate human beings. But losing brings about a level of sadness that you can never get over. It tears your life apart. It ruins everything."
This is why Walton and so many others around the Clippers over the years are as happy for broadcaster Ralph Lawler as for any player. Nobody has put up with more futility than Lawler, "the picture of professionalism and class," Walton said. "He's always upbeat, always ready to go and never complains or whines. And we're talking about 27 years of Clipper basketball."
When you come to Staples Center from downtown Los Angeles you can't help but notice you're turning the car onto Chick Hearn Drive. Media folks dine and work in the Chick Hearn press room. Nothing visible is named for Lawler, though Coach Mike Dunleavy, all-star Elton Brand and playmaker-basketball sage Cassell are desperately trying to change that by winning.
Cassell said he wasn't worried about becoming a Clipper after having an all cards-on-the-table conversation with Dunleavy, who pretty much everybody credits with changing the losing culture of the place by insisting and demanding that the Clippers do better in every facet of the franchise.
When Cassell looked around in training camp and saw Brand inside, Cuttino Mobley on the wing and Chris Kaman at center, he said he knew the team would win this season. "Chris Kaman," Cassell said, "is one of the top five centers in the league. These were guys I knew I could work with."
Just as Elgin Baylor, the elegant and once high-flying Laker turned Clippers VP, had to suffer the criticism of so much bad stuff happening on his watch, he appeared humbled Thursday when he was presented with a cake in the press room for being named NBA executive of the year.
Somewhat unbelievably, the Clippers appear to be set for awhile. They're not just better than the Lakers, which for some in Clippers Nation might be good enough, but they're better than most teams in the NBA, good enough to contend in the Western Conference for the foreseeable future, perhaps good enough — whether he knows it or not — to once and for all get rid of the Curse of Bill Walton.