Obviously, the biggest story in the NBA this morning, and the biggest thing on any standings watching Clipper fan's mind (aside from tonite's game in Texas), has to be the thorough trouncing the Golden State Warriors handed to the Dallas Mavericks in Oakland last night. The Dubs are only a game back of our Los Angeles heroes now, and with tonight’s contest in San Antonio looming like a wide empty inviting grave filled with inchworms and dung beetles, the numbers don’t look like they’ll get shinier anytime soon. The last thing I’ll say is this, and it echoes some of what Tim Kamakawi opined on his blog today, the Dallas Mavericks have GOT to be worried about a possible 1-8 opening round matchup with the Warriors, who have OWNED them to the tune of 4 games to none this season. Definitely warrants mentioning, and HAS to be on the minds of Dirk, Cuban, Avery, et al, notwithstanding their otherwise stellar year, especially in light of last season’s breakdown against Miami in the finals. Avery Johnson, from what I can tell, has an amazing capacity for attention to detail and for seeing all the angles, and you know it must just be driving him utterly batshit the way the Warriors seem to have his team’s number, and the potential looming 7 game battle that very well could be in his lap come playoff time.

Ah, but that is a matter for another day, because I refuse to renege on the possibility that the Clippers, not Golden State, will be occupying that final 8 spot, if for no other reason than my uncanny ability to reject reality and subscribe to tall tales such as the story that goes “The Clippers could shock the world and pull one out of their ass in San Antone tonite,” a grand story of epic proportions told by a degenerate old man half asleep in a dingy, dimly lit den, dangerous liquor induced visions blurring his otherwise sound logic, the only respite from the voices coming in the form of leaping and bounding athletes zipping across the screen of his television, instilling clarity and hope in an otherwise blurry and bleak existence.

I have seen this man, he is my neighbor, your mailman, your wife’s manicurist, your son’s Chemistry teacher, your dog’s groomer. You may call him hopeless, a misguided pariah, skirting the edge of common sense and society’s standardized limits of haphazard theoretical thought. I, though, call him a prophet, a man with the sight to reject what is right in front of him and look beyond, to a land where the Los Angeles Clippers, the mangy mutt of the Southern California sports landscape, can rise against their limitations, both self imposed and herd mentality regimented. Go Clippers.