A lot has happened with the Los Angeles Clippers since my last post on Feb. 8th. The team traded Marcus Camby, Al Thornton and Sebastian Telfair and welcomed new players Steve Blake, Travis Outlaw and Drew Gooden. Interim head coach Kim Hughes finally got his first official win 99-89 against the Sacramento Kings, stopping a miserable 6-game losing streak.
The trades, especially the Camby one, were not very well received, since they essentially made it clear that this season was being given up on. Looking at the the bigger picture though, – the team’s future – you could see how the front office has positioned itself to be a major player in the vaunted 2010 free agent class.
Shedding Thornton and Telfair’s contract continued a positive trend set when the Zach Randolph, Tim Thomas, etc contracts were shipped out and gives the Clippers an estimated $17-18 million under the salary cap to offer a max contract to Cleveland’s LeBron James, Miami’s Dwyane Wade or several other star free agents.
Whether or not anyone will actually come to play for the Clippers though, is a whole other story, and apparently a worry of All-Star center Chris Kaman, who was frustrated by some of the moves.
“You’d like to think that we have a shot, but you never know,” center Chris Kaman said Thursday. “You don’t know what most guys are thinking. Do they want to come to the Clippers? Notoriously, we’ve struggled, but we have great pieces and we have great things to offer someone like that.”
All we Clipper fans have to do is look back at the last time we had loads of cap space (only to be rejected by Gilbert Arenas and Kobe Bryant) or the Elton Brand fiasco as reason to take cautious heed to Kaman’s words. Even with an extremely talented core group of Baron Davis, Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin, Chris Kaman and DeAndre Jordan plus LA’s great weather, convincing a superstar like LeBron or Wade to come here will be a monumental task.
I’m not much for optimism, especially after this year, so we’ll just have to wait and see how everything turns out, but kudos to management either way for their moves. As for the present, the Clippers face off with the Charlotte Bobcats tonight at Staples Center and word has it newly acquired Travis Outlaw may make his debut. Even journeyman Drew Gooden says he might be willing to give the Clippers a chance to keep him.
No offense to Gooden, but this wasn’t how I envisioned the season turning out. At 22-33, it makes sense for the Clippers to plan ahead and focus on a healthy 2010, it just sucks for us fans.
As usual though, we’ll just have to grit our teeth and wait it all out.
-Will.
“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.
