Mark it down on your calendars Clipper fans, because Thursday February 4th is now a glorious day in Clips history.
In case you haven’t heard, the Los Angeles Clippers announced today that Mike Dunleavy has been fired relieved of head coaching duties – effective immediately – and the move has been overwhelmingly greeted with joy by citizens of the Clipper Nation.
Halle-muthaflippin-lujah.
I know it may sound harsh, but screw that, I’m a Clipper fan and that alone gives me the right to thoroughly enjoy this moment. By the way, he’s remaining with the team as general manager and assistant coach Kim Hughes will serve as interim coach for the rest of the season.
However promising the Dunleavy hiring may have seemed back in 2003, years of under-achieving, bad rotations/substitutions, awful draft picks and so many other miserable choices completely alienated him from not only the fan base, but seemingly his own players as well.
This guy was a pariah in Clippers circles, a figure loathed by fans (see video below) who stacked up losses and yet never seemed in any danger of losing his job (thanks Mr.Sterling!), so the move comes as a huge surprise. There had been rumors of his possible removal earlier in the year, but something (unexpected quality wins against the Boston Celtics, LA Lakers and Denver Nuggets) always seemed to save his job.
His job security even appeared to be at an all-time high after he wasn’t fired following back to back losses to the New Jersey Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves (they’re a combined 15-82 and literally the two worst teams in the NBA) which essentially dropped the Clippers out of the Western Conference playoff race.
Personally, I figured it was just a part of our team’s sad destiny to be forever linked to Dunleavy, so when I got a text earlier from a fellow Clipper fan with the news, I hesitantly replied with “if this is true, that’s great,” even though I saw that the text was prefaced with a “MYLAC: Breaking News” stamp on it, signifying it was an official Clippers press release.
I’ve learned to proceed with caution and disbelief at any good Clipper news, so I had to grab my laptop and check ESPN and Yahoo’s NBA websites. Once there, I realized I wasn’t dreaming and I’ve been in a great mood ever since. That blown fourth quarter lead and loss against Atlanta last night? Nothing but a distant memory.
However happy we are at the move though, the news still comes with the unfortunate reality that it happened at least 10 games too late. As J.A. Adande says in his reaction to the news “If they were going to try to make a run at the playoffs they needed a jumpstart, not the setback that was this final trip under Dunleavy’s watch. Dunleavy hasn’t been the answer for a long time. The Clippers seemed to be the last to realize that.”
Adande is dead on with his commentary, since Dunleavy’s last stand during the 2-6 road trip put a big hamper on the other LA team’s playoff hopes. All in all, Dunleavy’s record was far from impressive and I doubt his resume will be wowing any other teams anytime soon. Via the Associated Press, his record is less than stellar, as seen in the following info.
“Dunleavy was 215-325 in 6 1/2 seasons on the bench, and Los Angeles made the playoffs just once in his first six seasons, getting within one game of the Western Conference finals in 2006. The Clippers haven’t been back to the playoffs since, winning just 42 games in the past two seasons.”
The news has been met with elation and classic comments from Clipper fans on websites like ClipperBlog.com and ClipsNation.com, who have compared it to “losing their virginity all over again” or this fitting tweet from Dunleavy critic Bill Simmons:
“According to Steiny Mo: Mike Dunleavy out as Clipper coach (staying on as GM). I just wish they had given him more time.”
The craziest part of this all is the fact that even though he’s not the coach anymore, he’s still being given a chance to run the team as GM.
Only with the Clippers.
-Will.
“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.
