Los Angeles Clipper Bandwagon Is Filling Up Despite Opening Loss

Certain things in sports are pretty much automatic: Kobe will take the last shot in a close game, the Yankees will buy the best free agent during the offseason, the Detroit Lions will never win a Super Bowl, etc.

Along the same vein, sports writers are somewhat predictable as well. I'm not a betting man, but if I were, I would have joined Pete Rose in dropping some coin on the likelihood that some writer would berate the Clippers start to the 2010-2011 season as "Same 'Ole Clippers."

"New coach, new general manager and new star in the making. Same old result for the Clippers." That's how the AP summarized the Clippers game last night.

Of course, the Clippers have no one to blame but themselves. Along with the consistency of a Kobe last second shot, Yankees deep pockets and Lions ineptness, the Clippers have proven to be a perpetual laughingstock.

Until this year.

Yes, I know they lost. Yes, I know they played defense with the intensity and interest of Donald Sterling at a racial sensitivity conference. Yes, I know they blew the game in the fourth and I even noticed that their bench was pretty much non-existent.

But did you see Blake Griffin? Did you notice Eric Gordon?

The Clippers have had good young players before—the problem in the past has been keeping them: Danny Manning couldn't wait to get out of town; Lamar Odom, who is as much an L.A.-guy as anyone, bolted when he had the chance; Ron Harper likened being a Clipper to spending time in Sing Sing.

Maybe I'm being a tad optimistic, but things feel different this time around. Maybe its because the best young player in the Association, Kevin Durant, opted to re-up with a team from Oklahoma and forgo a BIG payday. He stayed in Oklahoma for goodness sake!

Maybe it's because Griffin captured the imagination of Los Angeles quicker than any athlete since Fernando Valenzuela. Maybe it's because I saw enough of a hint of teamwork to believe this group can become a team.

Sure, this is a team under development; actually, it's a franchise under development. Has been for years, decades. Change generally doesn't come quick, but there are certain milestones one can point to as a key when the tide began to turn.

For the New Orleans Saints, it was when they acquired Drew Brees; for the Angels, it was when they hired Mike Scioscia; for the Lakers, and basketball as a whole, the milestone was a young Magic Johnson jumping into the arms of a startled Kareem Abdul-Jabbar after a meaningless start of the season victory against the San Diego Clippers. 

For the Clippers, now from Los Angeles, it was a thunder dunk by the kid with the weird looking eyes and game unlike anything we have ever seen in Los Angeles. To be that big and yet that quick is creepy; to be that big and jump that high, just seems unfair.

On one of Griffin's highlight dunks I noticed him and Chris Kaman going up for a rebound. Griffin, who gives up two to three inches to Kaman, was easily a foot and a half higher than the Clipper center. Commentator Hubie Brown said that Griffin plays the game at eleven feet.

Exactly.

So, where we go from here depends on this group. Durant stayed with the Thunder in the OKC, in large part, because he saw the potential of the team. The city embraced him and he has a legitimate chance to win. In Griffin and Gordon, the Clippers have two pieces that can be every bit as good as the Thunder nucleus of Durant and Westbrook.

Now, can they win?

Can the Clippers surprise teams this year like the Thunder did last year? Can Vinny Del Negro mentor this team and keep them from getting used to losing and expecting to win? Can GM Neil Olshey make a mid-season acquisition to bolster the small forward spot and bench?

They have L.A.'s attention, but can these Clippers keep it? LA famously suffers from A.D.D. You can "wow" us one day and you got us, but make us "yawn" the next day and we move on. It's just how we do things in La-La Land.

I'm betting this team succeeds where so many others failed. This team grows. This team builds. This team surprises the Association. This team wins.

Or maybe I'm being a tad optimistic.