Soap Opera Star Neil Olshey Hopes to Write Fairytale Ending for Clippers' Fans

Leave it to the Clippers.  

An L.A. based team with a history of losing and botched draft picks have fired their woeful NBA blue-blooded G.M. only to replace him with a never-made-it actor who’s greatest achievement was reading for a background role on “All My Children.”

Yes Clippers fans, your team is now in the hands of Neil Olshey, a onetime aspiring actor who moved from New York to L.A. to pursue an acting career in soap operas.

In fact, it was on a train ride home from the set of “Law & Order” in Manhattan where the aspiring actor was instructed by the show’s star, Jerry Orbach, to “go to L.A.” where he could “hit a home run.”

Olshey followed the advice, but the home run in acting never happened. Olshey does not have an Oscar or even a daytime Emmy on his shelf. He never landed a featured role in any movie, soap opera, or even an infomercial.

Instead, he landed one of the most sought after and highest leadership positions with an NBA franchise.

Despite his sub-par acting career, it is not entirely fair to categorize Olshey as inexperienced or unprepared.

Prior to joining the Clippers, Olshey served as Director of Player Development for SFX Sports Group, Inc., where he created and conducted NBA pre-draft training camps that produced 57 current NBA players, including fifteen lottery picks. In fact, Olshey was at the Big East Tournament scouting college talent when he got the surprising phone call that a golfing (!) Mike Dunleavy had just discovered he was fired as G.M..

Olshey was named G.M. that day.

Could this be a feel good Hollywood story detailing the chase and capture of the American dream?

Or is this the part in the horror movie where the unsuspecting blonde girl inexplicably runs upstairs to hide in her room instead of calling the police or running outside?

Maybe I am a sucker for a fairy tale ending, but this is exactly what the Clippers need—a fresh perspective. Olshey is the exact opposite of Dunleavy. He is not established, he is not set in his NBA ways, and he does not have a (known) propensity to sign overrated past-their-prime free agents to exorbitant long term contracts.

Instead, Olshey is someone with big Hollywood dreams and a background in critiquing and evaluating draft prospects. It is not outlandish to think that with Olshey, the Clippers may have their best chance in fifteen years to make an educated draft selection—so long as Donald Sterling stays out of the way.

And so the mystery remains. How will this movie will end?

Will the evil Donald Sterling thwart Olshey’s best efforts to try and lift the Clippers out of NBA irrelevancy? Or will Olshey do what no other Clipper’s G.M. has been able to accomplish, and finally hit his long awaited Hollywood home run?

Time will tell, but come this year’s draft, Olshey’s true character—whether villain, or hero—will be revealed to eagerly awaiting Clippers’ fans.