<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">LOS ANGELES - It was one of those things that I've been meaning to do for years. You know, like sitting down with that Harry Truman biography. Or taking the wife to that chamber music concert. I really did mean to see another Clippers game in person. OK, so the last time I saw them, they played in the decrepit L.A. Sports Arena, and I was a beat writer covering the Washington Bullets, and it was 1993. Sue me. It's not like I cover the NBA for a living. Um, wait. Strike that. All right, so it's been 13 years. What could have possibly changed? Like sands through the hourglass, so went the Clippers stinking out the joint. You could set your watch to their dreadfulness. And not just garden-variety dreadful; they were the Louvre of horrid. Every year, general manager Elgin Baylor would look more stooped over, a smile stretched tighter and tighter across his face, as he trudged to his regular seat at the draft lottery in Secaucus, N.J. Exaggeration? Well, let's let center Chris Kaman deconstruct the recent history of this franchise. "I know we came from Buffalo to San Diego to here," he said, "and I know we [stunk] all the way." Yep, that about covers it. So it is shocking to report that the Clippers no longer, uh, stink. Really. The team with the worst won-lost percentage in NBA history entering this season won 47 games - the most since the franchise, then the Buffalo Braves, went 49-33 in 1974-75. The Clippers made the playoffs for the first time in eight years, big doings for a franchise that has accomplished that four times since the Ford administration. "I'm looking at our playoff history," all-star forward Elton Brand said, "and it was just half a page." Their futility over the years has only been made worse by the fact that they are fighting for attention in this town with NBA royalty: the Lakers. The Lakers, who have the league's all-time best winning percentage. The Lakers, with the 13 world championships, second only to the Celtics. The Lakers, of Mikan and Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar and Shaq. Contrast that with the Clippers, of Benoit Benjamin and Keith Closs and Michael Olowokandi. (Olowokandi, the first pick overall in the 1998 draft, was so awful that some Clippers fans eased their pain by writing haiku in celebration of his terrible play - Olowokandi's name being five syllables, and thus being perfect for the first line in the 5-7-5 haiku structure.) The Lakers have Kobe Bryant - who was named after a succulent slab of beef. The Clippers have Zeljko Rebraca - who is a succulent Slav of beef. The Lakers have celebrity fans like Jack Nicholson, who has won Oscars. The Clippers have celebrity fans like Billy Crystal, who has hosted the Oscars. But Saturday, Crystal was part of a sellout crowd at the Staples Center, many dressed in red T-shirts reading "Clippers Nation," that watched the Clippers hang on for an 89-87 victory over Denver in Game 1 - the team's first postseason win in... wait for it... 13 years. Everything changed here three years ago, when owner Donald Sterling - think of a charming Norman Braman - finally loosened his substantial purse strings after almost two decades of parsimony and hired Mike Dunleavy as coach. But Sterling also listened to Dunleavy, who said the team had to match offer sheets for Brand and Corey Maggette, then free agents, and try to bring in free-agent guard Gilbert Arenas. The Clippers missed out on Arenas, but they secured Brand and Maggette. Three years later, they're part of the team's core, along with Kaman, a rapidly improving center. The Clippers then went out and got a backcourt last summer, acquiring veteran Sam Cassell from Minnesota and signing Cuttino Mobley from Sacramento. Slowly, the fans are starting to believe. Season-ticket renewal rates for next season are at 94 percent, according to Andy Roeser, the team's executive vice president. "Hopefully, it'll change the way things are run around here," said Cassell, who didn't want to come here originally. But Cassell, who will be a free agent at the end of the playoffs, has grown to like the place.</div> Source
