let's keep sea-town in the mix, por favor

lots of people are giving rat’s asshole burgers about this save our sonics dillio, myself included. When I say giving rat’s asshole burgers, that’s a high compliment of insanely huge proportions, ie it’s gigantically important to many people in the know. Saying “no one give’s a rat’s asshole (burger)” is essentially the opposite of the current scenario.

Supersonicsoul threw up a bell clamoring post today, and it’s expressive of a movement issuing planetquakes through the innernet. We gotta stop stern Bennett and the croney-ites from ass raping the pacific northwest, stat.

Props to the south florida fan blog for propagating further plethorization. Clickety clack. Sonics Central of course critically criticizing the supposed status quo. Certain segments of the mainstream media and their hooliganistic fertilizer eaters cannot be allowed to ramrod a false presupposition down our throats. Ball Don’t Lie is on the loop, as well, conglomerizing contact info for the NBA owners. Accountability counts, count on it.

Let’s not just roll over for this crap, folks. 40 years in sea-town can’t just go the way of the dodo bird without at least 83 firm bitch slaps. Man up, America. Salud.

I should type something here, theoretically

Yup, this blog still exists, sorry in arrears. The Clippers’ season? Not so much. Well, I guess, yeah, they go out and play the games, what scant refugees they happen to be able to scrape off the locker room floor five minutes before tip-off, but I don’t know if I’d call it an acual team.

Watching the semblance (that has a nice ring to it) for intermittent moments against the mavs yesterday, amid watching all the other games live & streaming, I was struck with just how awful and unwatchable the clips are this season. TERRIBLE.

90% of the NBA gametime I’d perused this year had been clips games. With 2 kids under 2, I barely have time to keep tabs on them, let alone the rest of the association. Then yesterday, in a fit of pique, I loaded up on NBA during slow times at work, (gracias to an amazing website that streams all the games that I won't link here, but email me or drop a comment if you want the info) and was amazed at the quality of basketball being played, even (actually, especially) by Chicago & Atlanta, two BARELY east playoff teams (Chicago prolly not, but) and they looked amazing compared to the la bastard step… oh, you know the rest. The Hornets were... as the guy from Everything is Illuminated would opine, proximally premium. Chris Paul is nuts and Peja, damn.

As far as our Clips, sad, sad, incredibly depressing season. But I won’t let it ruin my love for the roundball, or the clippers. Better times are on the horizon, and I still stand by Donald Sterling's wayward mishmash brigade, albeit not quite as much with their fake homeless center propagandizing owner. I hereby can only watch tiny sporadic bursts of clipper games the rest of the season, it’s too emotionally draining. Instead I will watch all the other teams when I get spare minutes. Teams that actually have something to fight for. Teams that actually have point guards not named Brevin Knight or Dan Dickau or (shudder) Smush Parker. Teams that pass the ball and get fast break points. Teams that… don’t sap my soul of its last remaining vestigal juice.

Horribly ugly mustard title defacing my glob, and other things short for this planet

You try and blend, you try and fit in, you attempt some reasonable acclimation to “bloggerdom” by instilling titles in the format (so on places like lowpost and ballhype if your posts ever come up at all at least they say something besides “no title”) and what happens, blogger chooses really the most god-awful non flattering color. I’ll figure out a way to fix it or trash the whole idea. Never liked coming up with titles for anything to tell you the truth.

Oh yeah, the clippers. Why we (me) are (am) here. Well, 3-4 on the road trip ain’t too shabby to tell the truth. I only really watched the game at Toronto, and lucky me, they won. Toronto shot the ball horribly from 3 (they’re usually en fuego) and the clips shot lights out from behind the arc, including a bonkers 5-5 from trey for Maggs, which will happen again as soon as my pet pig Percy flies up to the north pole and brings me back Lois Lane’s panties. (coming soon, truss.)

I was going to write this whole pontification on the season type dillio that I’d been pondering in the shower this morning, you know, about the different dynamics of appreciating a winning year (2006 – definitely the banner year for the franchise since moving west and probably even if you include the Buffalo years, but I can’t speak from experience there – too young and an Angeleno, ya know) vs. a seemingly semi-winning year, a la almost making the playoffs but falling short (2007 – where our interest in the race for #8 allowed us at least the semblance of hope even though we all knew in our hearts that the almighty Dallas – HAH – would trounce us in the first round anyway, which I still believe, despite the golden state happenstance, they matched up with them perfectly and plus the whole Nellie little general dynamic, Cuban, moolah, et al) and then, obviously then, or not so obviously, what do you do in taking a look at THIS year?

Yeah, I was gonna do that, and I guess I already am, so, at least a run through and we'll dig deeper in another episode. The main focus of this year has to be the development of Thornton, who is, by all appearances, going to be a bona fide STUD in this league, and I mean that in the sense of possibly a perennial all-star and not in the take him out to the farm to mount some mares mindframe. Secondly, the emergence, depressingly, but at the same time happily (because we still need wins, I REFUSE to hunt ping pong balls, even on the last day of the season, we are clipper fans, goddammitt, we measure success in 30 win seasons rather than 20 win seasons, end scene) of Maggette’s MONSTROUS game. Yeah, he still has his issues (defense, spacing, knowing when to stay, when to double, not the greatest passer, etc., but who's perfect?), always will, but damn, what he can bring to an offense when he’s clicking and working (his shooting's WAY UP, that nose to the grindstone get to the line driveability, that strength in the paint, that speed, quickness, agility, et al), which he is? Wow. And will we see it here next year? If DST (yeah, yeah, I mean DTS) has his way, yeah, so I guess that’s good.

Huge, Sir-Mix-A-Lot sized BUTT: BUT will Maggs, if we force him to come back (ie match any offers, you are a clipper for life sir, no matter what, suck it up), will he be the consummate pro and continue this torrid pace (he's gunning for the phattest contract of his career right now) or just put it in cruise control, enjoy LA, and soak up the funds and retire rich but not really givin an eff about titles, winning, la la la. and how will Brand put up with that attitude, if it manifests, if Brand is here?

And then obviously the dynamic later in the season of Brand himself (finally) coming back, but even moreso of Livie coming back, and will he be the player that he was? That’s huge. Because just imagine next year with all these pieces theoretically healthy & in place, plus whatever this crappy ass year yields in the draft? whooo. But, speaking presently, there ARE things to take from this season, subtle appreciations, and like the bum in the alley inspecting the bagels, I know the fresh ones and I know the ones that are over a day old, what is gold and what is myrhhh. I may not know why I know, or what I know, or how, or anything substantive, but, well, yeah. Go clips.

Horribly ugly disfigured mustard title defacing my blog, and other things short for this planet

You try and blend, you try and fit in, you attempt some reasonable acclimation to “bloggerdom” by instilling titles in the format (so on places like lowpost and ballhype if you’re posts ever come up at all they say something besides “no title”) and what happens, blogger chooses really the most god-awful non flattering color. I’ll figure out a way to fix it or trash the whole idea. Never liked coming up with titles for anything to tell you the truth.

Oh yeah, the clippers. Why we (me) are (am) here. Well, 3-4 on the road trip ain’t too shabby to tell the truth. I only really watched the game at Toronto, and lucky me, they won. Toronto shot the ball horribly from 3 (they’re usually en fuego) and the clips shot lights out from behind the arc, including a bonkers 5-5 from trey for Maggs, which will happen again as soon as my pet pig Percy flies up to the north pole and brings me back Lois Lane’s panties. (coming soon, truss.)

I was going to write this whole pontification on the season type dillio that I’d been pondering in the shower this morning, you know, about the different dynamics of appreciating a winning year (2006 – definitely the banner year for the franchise since moving west and probably even if you include the Buffalo years, but I can’t speak from experience there – too young and an Angeleno, ya know) vs. a seemingly semi-winning year, a la almost making the playoffs but falling short (2007 – where our interest in the race for #8 allowed us at least the semblance of hope even though we all knew in our hearts that the almighty Dallas – HAH – would trounce us in the first round anyway, which I still believe, despite the golden state happenstance, they matched up with them perfectly and plus the whole Nellie little general dynamic, Cuban, moolah, et al) and then, obviously then, or not so obviously, what do you do in taking a look at THIS year?

Yeah, I was gonna do that, and I guess I already am, so, at least a run through and well dig deeper in another episode. The main focus of this year has to be the development of Thornton, who is, by all appearances, going to be a bona fide STUD in this league, and I mean that in the sense of possibly a perennial all-star and not in the take him out to the farm to mount some mares mindframe. Secondly, the emergence, depressingly, but at the same time happily (because we still need wins, I REFUSE to hunt ping pong balls, even on the last day of the season, we are clipper fans, goddammitt, we measure success in 30 win seasons rather than 20 win seasons, end scene) of Maggette’s MONSTROUS game. Yeah, he still has his issues, always will, but damn, what he can bring to an offense when he’s clicking and working, which he is? Wow. And will we see it here next year? If DST (yeah, yeah, I mean DTS) has his way, yeah, so I guess that’s good.

And then obviously the dynamic later in the season of Brand coming back, but even moreso of Livie coming back, and will he be the player that he was? That’s huge. Because just imagine next year, whooo. But there ARE things to take from this season, subtle appreciations, and like the bum in the alley inspecting the bagels, I know the fresh ones and I know the ones that are over a day old, what is gold and what is myrhhh. I may not know why I know, or what I know, or how, are anything substantive, but, well, yeah. Go clips.

LA MSM: Great... great sandwich

Got to watch maybe the first 3 possessions of the clips Celtics game last night before I got swept up in kids wife houseguest etcetera acres and then I wasn’t able to resist peeking at the score this morning. Yup, another loss.

A bigger loss, in my mind, is that our road weary soldier, bringing clipper nation’s woes and (occasional, yes, they did happen) joys to the plebeian masses, LA Times Staff Writer Jon Abrams, is (confirming what I suspected after seeing nothing but AP riff raff for the clips up on the LAT website since the morning of the game in Minnesota) off the beat for the Clippers (and I confirmed it via email), because, uh, it doesn’t exist anymore.

So, let me get this straight, the biggest newspaper in the southland, the venerable Los Angeles Times, has NO beat reporter for one of the area’s National Basketball Association teams. I shudder to wonder how many people are working the Lakers circuit. (which is granted, at this point, exponentially more relevant, but dammit, doesn’t the “news” have a responsibility to report all the news? Do the New York papers just STOP covering the Jets? The Knicks? How the HELL do you call yourself a newspaper and pull this crap?)

YOUR Los Angeles Clippers. Truly, TRULY, Southern California’s bastard stepchildren. Legitimately illegitimized. (cries).

update: I should probably amend this just a smidgen. Abrams confirmed via e-mail that he's not TRAVELLING to cover the team anymore. So no road game coverage, which in my puny mind means there is no beat, but I guess he'll probably provide coverage for the home games, so maybe the Times is providing a half-beat. Who knows. Still, a travesty mos def. Apparently the OC Register pulled their clipper guy off of travel duty as well. Guess there's nothing to see (at least from the LA mainstream print media's perspective) on this or any future road trip for Donald Sterling's wayward darlings the rest of the 07-08 season. Sigh. Guess it's this same mentality (that the clippers don't essentially "matter") that has everybody and his brother in national sports coverage wondering why we don't just hand Cassell over to Boston on a silver platter. (You want fries with that?)

For more on all of the above, click your way over to Clips Nation. I'll be sobbing in my soup. Aloha.

With Thornton now sick with a stomach virus, reportedly unrelated to Kaman & Maggs still being out with the flu, the Clips are so short-handed they can’t even have a proper practice.

From the LA Times, Sam Cassell’s reaction to the carnage:

"We can't do nothing," Cassell said of Tuesday's practice. "We've got [eight] guys out here. We were watching film and just looking at guys like, 'Wow.' This is the first time I've ever been in the league and we've had [eight] healthy bodies and I've been in the league for 15 years."

And yes, I know I kept alluding to someone named “DST” in my last post. And yes, I know his (Donald T. Sterling’s) initials are actually DTS, & yeah, well, I dunno, DST sounds nicer. Maybe I’ll keep using it. Hmmm, yeah, it stands for Donald "Stratocaster" Tiberius-Sterling. Star Trek fan guitar playing fake last name havin’ super rich guy. Sue me.

wow, bury your (my) head in the sand for a couple days and clipperville turns into Falcon’s Crest. The Hatfields and McCoys seemingly momentarily possessed the bodies of Don Sterling & Mike Dunleavy, and hilarity (the melancholy sobbing type) ensued. If you’re not up on the up & up, peep the LA Times Clips page and dive in (especially make sure you read the two TJ Simers columns which lit and then poured gas on the proverbial match). Seems like it’s all settled for now, but any time an employee calls out the boss man like what went down here (and yeah, DST instigated it, but, well) then you’re gonna get some friction, apparent even more so in the odd back & forth exchange chronicled by the ever on-it Jon Abrams of Dunleavy saying he spoke to Sterling the night before the Sacto romp and then when DST’s response was “he said what?” and shaking his head and leaving it at that, Dunleavy admitting he spoke to the boss’s wife after trying to catch jefe tres tiempos and got the word they were on the “same page” from some upper echelon underling, well, then, uh, Mike, just shut up & coach big guy, just shut up & coach, as long as they’ll let ya. I do think it’ll blow over though, as much as DST is dropping major coin this year, he’s still the salty old miser that would sooner sell an apartment complex in Van Nuys for half what he bought it for than leave $17 million dollars on Mike Dunleavy’s koa wood dining room table, and THAT my brothers in arms (and sisters) you can take to the bank, for what it’s worth (prolly about 82 cents.) gratzi in advance, arrears, you know the drill, and if you don’t sit tight, certified instructors are on their way.

Well up until last night I had been living in a world where it was still early in the first quarter of the clips home game against Utah on MLK Jr. day. I avoided any and all reference to the clippers for over 48 hours, except for one moment to verify what year it was they fled Buffalo (1978).

I had caught every precious minute of the home overtime thriller win against New Jersey, Al Thornton’s best yet. The kid looked great. But against Utah? Well, for a spell he looked great, and then for whatever reason Dunleavy decided to give him the green light in the fourth quarter (despite the clips still being in the game) to force up any and all shots the 24 year old rook deemed makeable. Which happened to be anything with a hair of daylight involved.

The results were not good. Al hit a few, but missed more, and it took LA out of whatever semblance of an offensive rhythm (granted, not a huge entity) that they’d managed to discover.

But back to the New Jersey game. Kaman’s block early on Sean Williams, wow. And then Sean Williams with a good number of his own later in the game. That Williams guy is a monster. He will be an amazing NBA center slash 4 if he keeps his head straight. Gotta love the high socks, too, and the pointy goater. (noticed Okur rocking one of those for Utah, as well.)

Goddammit. I just somehow accidentally despite years of so called expertise in information control, discovered that our lovable bastard stepchildren blew out (and wow, really demolished, per the score) the Sacto Queens. And home it sits on my TIVO waiting for me to discover it tonight in all its glory and now, really, the thrill is gone. I guess that’s OK, with the logjam of games on KTLA (I get that, but not Fox Prime Ticket, on my satellite system, go figure) this week, it’s not likely (2 kids under 2, referenced other spots, natch) that I’d be able to catch it before the back to back telecasts on Friday & Saturday against Memphis and New Orleans, so, well, oh well. Maybe I’ll still peruse it a bit in the midnight hours when the rest of the house sleeps, which is how I managed to watch the Utah game last night.

But then, that’s extraneous information, but then, contrarily, is any information truly extraneous? Even the most seemingly useless tidbit, in the proper perspective, can later be deemed invaluable. Aye, sirrah. Well, let me wander toward the workplace requirements and check in with you later fair clipper fan(s). Shalom.

I will close with noting that the clips have won 3 out of their last 5, with both losses coming against Utah (from what I saw in the nether hours last night, a DAMN good squad, which by my reckoning will be a force in the playoffs again, notwithstanding their current slightly less than spectacular record.) Not bad for a season on (ok, beyond, in all likelihood) the brink. You gotta find your grains of non-rotten wheat somewhere.

update: I think I should qualify my label of Utah as a damn good squad based on last night's viewing. this opinion might sound odd in that, actually, Utah looked like shit in this game. Boozer was good on the glass and scoring, but not up to par with his normal self. AK47 was almost completely absent (partially due to foul trouble). Okur was not amazing, but shot the ball reasonably well. And all this is why I think Utah is so dangerous. Deron Williams held it together and managed to whoop the Clippers with beautiful passes to cutting Ronnie Brewer & Paul Millsap, among others. Brewer, especially, looked good in this game. And Kyle Korver can still shoot the lights out. If Kirilenko is even close to himself and if the Jazz weren't turning the ball over like crazy in the first half (which the clips were doing equally ineptly), then this is even more of a blowout (not that it was necessarily an ass whuppin, but the end was pretty much determined with 7 or 8 minutes left, never a good thing). So there you go, finding evidence of beauty in ugly duckling perseverance. As mentioned, I was impressed with Williams. Yeah, he had some brainfart turnovers, but honestly, that seemed more a function of that wacky first half than any lack of skill on his part. He's going to be even better than he is now, which is damn good, and Utah will hang around for a bunch of years in the playoff picture, just like the Stockton Malone years. The question is, will they be perennial also rans like those older squads, or will Williams Boozer (and I think the X-factor is definitely Kirilenko, who still has this odd habit of disappearing now and again, despite his unbelievable talent) et al push them over the mountain to a title before these guys are old & gray and the next round of pick and roll practitioners are trudging up & down the court for Jerry Sloan? remains to be seen, but it's entertaining product nonetheless. Prolly fair recompense for having to live in Utah. Natch.

Watched the dallas loss, but didn’t get to see the phoenix win. Watching, over the course of 2 days (I work 40 hours a week & have 2 kids under 2, natch, and yeah, it was the weekend, but see item #2) it was obvious the clips were playing a higher level of ball than they had the whole year, except for maybe the first week or 2 (during which they inexplicably had a winning record and fooled a few, yours truly among them, into thinking they might actually be decent.)

And now, it seems, I may be getting fooled again. Yeah, the end of the dallas game was heartbreak city, apologies to Ric Ocasek, with that Stackhouse trey, and the inane brainfart a la Tim Thomas (who it’s a bit hard to fault, as he had an amazing game up to that point, doing things that we ALL constantly harp that he should be doing on a regular basis, but just, well, doesn’t, like take it hard to the rack, rebound, etc.) taking that shot WAY too early in the shot clock to set up the stack three, but anyway, everything before that, well, most of it: gold. For a squad beat up as it was to lose Q in the first quarter and then almost beat Dallas, granted, without their 2nd best player (Josh Howard, who, crazy as it sounds, because he gets a lot of respect, may be underrated, especially for what he does for them on the defensive end and with the overall ball movement and spacing) out for the evening, well, it was nice to see. So who knows, with this well played (& yeah, there are no moral victories, blah, blah) loss & the win against the suns (complete with Sam’s back from the dead renaissance, how long that can/will last, if at all, remaining to be seen), maybe a turnaround is imminent?

Playing on the road tonight in Salt Lake City, some semblance of pudding’s proof will be perusable shortly.