Los Angeles Clippers Fans and Management: Take a Rival's Advice

As the title gives away, I am not a Clippers fan. I'm a Golden State Warriors fan. However, at times that gives us a special kinship with Clippers fans due to the fact that we have so many shared experiences.

Both franchises have owners who treat their fans like dirt. Both have employed Baron Davis (although we got him in baller form, you got his corpse) and Corey Maggette (although I prefer to think of him as the guy who gets paid $10 million to defend like a revolving door). And both teams have experienced a year of relative success that gave their respective fanbases hope only for management to, once again, screw them over.

However, currently it's hard to argue that the Clippers hold a few aces. Not only have they somehow managed to acquire a talented young core of players (Eric Gordon, Blake Griffin). Chris Kaman has begun to come into his own as an NBA center this year as well. Plus, you guys have managed to do what our management failed to do in clearing enough cap space to be players in the Great Free Agent Dutch Auction Of 2010. 

While the Clippers do have their fair share of benefits (the aforementioned core combination of young talent and capable veterans, their location and the LA market) ultimately it might prove to be a step too far to hope to convince LeBron or Wade to play second fiddle to Kobe in LA, especially when the team owner is a racist, dirty old whackjob like Donald Sterling.

Don't despair, though. I have a few suggestions from the enemy camp which you might consider helpful.

1) Go after Joe Johnson or Rudy Gay.

As I mentioned earlier, snaring LeBron or Wade is probably a bit too much to hope for, however Johnson or Gay would be more than handy alternatives.

Both of them are in excellent situations right now (Johnson and the Hawks are Finals contenders in the East, and the Grizzlies surely aren't that far away from the West playoffs) so if they do decide to leave, it's an obvious sign that they want max contracts.

While you'd have to argue that they probably aren't good enough to be your undisputed No. 1 franchise player, put either Johnson or Gay in a fully fit Clippers team (a lineup of Boom Dizzle/Gordon/Johnson or Gay/Griffin/Kaman) and you have a team that can go deep into the playoffs even in the West.

2) Trade your draft pick this year to Boston for Kevin Garnett.

The Clippers are projected to get the eighth pick in this year's lottery. Assuming they don't manage to snare a top-three pick, that gives them a fair shot at drafting one of the second-tier big men in a draft stacked with them. Someone like Greg Monroe, Donatas Motiejunas, possibly even an Al-Farouq Aminu.

Apart from Aminu (who's a tweener best suited for small forward) it's hard to see how any of these guys fit into the Clippers right now as anything other than backups.

This is a trade that would benefit both teams. For Boston, while it would mean the end of the "Boston Three Party" (which I prefer to the more boring "Big Three") it would give them a chance to start rebuilding with Rondo and the Clips pick. The trade would also function as a salary dump for the Celtics.

For the Clippers, everyone knows what Garnett brings—leadership, experience, and toughness by the bucketload. Plus, while it would mean you have to take on his salary, he would sell plenty of jerseys and bring star power to the Clips, something they haven't had since...well, ever. Even if his knee is struggling, you could bring him off the bench and he'd still produce as well as any sixth man in the league.

Or you could have Griffin as sixth man for a couple of years and let him develop—after all, if you wanted a mentor for a young stud power forward, could you do better than Kevin Garnett (well, that Duncan bloke excepted)? He could easily slot into the role that Sam Cassell had on the 2006 Clippers team.

So, what do you think, Clippers fans? Honestly, think about it. Could you continue to do much worse? Curse or no curse, a few more playoff series and sticking it to the Lakers would be nice.

I was in Los Angeles during the 2006 playoffs. While I don't live in LA, I've spent enough time in the city to know that 99 percent of the time, if anyone gives a crap about basketball, it's all about the Lakers. The Clippers...well, I don't need to go into it.

That year was different. Everywhere I looked, I saw people wearing Clippers jerseys. My uncle, who had sworn off professional sports ever since the Rams left town, surprised us all by hopping on the Clippers bandwagon. We couldn't even get tickets for any of the playoff games, and I'd never had a problem attending a Clippers game at Staples Center before.

While I've experienced two similar things events in my life as a fan (the 2005 Wests Tigers and the 2007 Warriors), in it's own way, watching the cool people of LA start falling in love with the least cool franchise in professional sports was equally special. And I'd like to see it again in my lifetime.