I was having lunch with my parents during Game 7 of the Clippers/Rockets series. Halfway through the first quarter the Clippers turned the ball over. The following conversation ensued:
Dad: Oh, come on. Where are you passing that?
Me: Haha!
Mom: Eric, are you really rooting against the Los Angeles team?
That made me think. One, my Mom was paying attention to the game, and two, why was I rooting against a team from Los Angeles when they were playing against a team from Houston, and vehemently at that?
So I thought, then thought some more, and came up with my top 5 reasons as to why I vehemently root against the Clippers.
5. Clippers Fans Hate the Lakers and I’m a Lakers Fan.
For as long as I can remember, the Lakers had always been the Los Angeles team in contention and the Clippers fans I knew found it to be a source of pride to cheer for the losing L.A. team. But they took it a step further. They hated the Lakers who they deemed spoiled and whose fans they deemed to be not “real fans.”
Yea, because you’re only a “real fan” if you trudge down to the Sports Arena to cheer on a team going 31-51 every year. Good call. You win Clippers Nation.
So because the Clippers fans were pissed that they had to go to the Sports Arena to sit in a crappy venue only to watch their teams get killed year in and year out, they had to blame it on someone. Enter Lakers fans.
It always struck me as ridiculous for two reasons: First, Lakers fans didn’t hate the Clippers until very recently. We just looked at them the same way Michael Corleone looked at Fredo before he found out Fredo had set him up. The Clippers were just our hapless siblings whom we felt sorry for. Second, and more importantly, if you grew up in Los Angeles, why didn’t you choose to just root for the Lakers? You had a choice. It’s not our fault you chose a perennial loser whose ownership never showed any interest in winning.
Clippers Nation: We never did anything to you when you were down. And now that the Lakers are down, it took Clippers fans all of 0.0001 seconds to rub it in our faces. You’re the Red Sox fans who wanted sympathy for the perennial loser tag before finally winning only to become even more insufferable after the victories came. So do you really have to wonder why Lakers fans are loving every Clippers meltdown? You brought this on yourselves.
4. The Clippers Complain More Than All of My Relatives Combined, and I’m Jewish.
B. When Blake doesn’t complain, he spits in lieu of complaining;
If there were ever the perfect team to have a player named Big Baby on the roster, it’s this Clippers team. You’ll never believe this, but he has a history of complaining too!
3. The Flopping, ohhhhh the Flopping.
I’m sure I don’t need to get into this because anyone who watches basketball knows how much the Clippers flop. This Chris Paul one is my favorite. This Blake Griffin flop is a little grainy but a close second.
If that wasn’t enough, can I interest you in a Chris Paul flop compilation?
But I’m not the only one who hates watching the Clippers flop. Wait, even Matt Barnes admits that Blake flops? I know he was on the Lakers when he said that, but still.
2. They Cover the Lakers’ Championship Banners During Clippers Home Games.
It’s pretty much the NBA version of: “if we can’t have championship banners then you can’t have any either.” So instead Clippers fans are forced to look at banners of the Clippers’ starting five.
Now that I think about it, if a franchise is going to act like a group of five-year-olds, nobody is going to embody that more than the Clippers’ starting five.
Clippers fans have to admit though, those banners are ridiculous, especially when you know what’s hiding behind the curtains.
1. The Clippers are Still a Team Compiled During the Racist Sterling Era.
Donald Sterling’s racist exploits are infamous. Most people only made themselves aware with the V. Stiviano tape. However, Sterling has a racist history that goes back into the last century. This is someone who holds minorities in such low regard that I cannot think of a proper comparison, and that’s saying something. Just read the quotes in the previous hyperlink if you really want to disgust
yourself.
So why am I bringing that up now that the Energizer bunny that is Steve Ballmer owns the team? I know what you’re thinking and no, it’s not just because Shelly Sterling, the wife and cohort of Donald, still occupies a courtside seat. No, it is because the NBA and its fans allowed Sterling to get away with his deplorable behavior for so long. If the Clippers didn’t have fans who paid for seats and watched their games, Donald Sterling wouldn’t have been able to make money treating his players like chattel and winning by losing. Clippers fans were complicit and so were the free agents who signed with the Clippers.
The Clippers players put on a display of disgust and defiance when the aforementioned V. Stiviano tape came out. But, as I have said for years, why did they sign to play for Sterling in the first place? Chris Paul and Blake Griffin signed extensions to play for a Donald Sterling team. He’d been a racist piece of crap for decades. What, was Google not working that day? Baron Davis wasn’t available via telephone?
Sorry, the Clippers and their fans have nobody to blame but themselves. However, eventually this era will pass. The team will eventually be comprised of Steve Ballmer era guys only. I might still be annoyed by Clippers fans at that point, but not the team. But by that time, they’ll probably be the Seattle Clippers. Too bad.
As your unofficial self appointed Clipper correspondent I admit that you make some great points. The Clippers always find a way to lose.
That is what they do, that is their culture. Real Clipper fans expect them to find a way to lose and watch their games waiting for that pivotal moment when the Clippers start their inevitable demise. In this past series vs. Houston that moment came when Jordan missed a dunk when the Clippers were winning by sixteen in game six. After that it was all down hill. What NBA team turns the ball over on an in-bounds play after a made basket…twice. That is hard enough to do in a pick up game with a bunch of old white guys. This is the NBA not Girls frosh/soph (and I say that with the utmost respect to the ladies).
We appreciate their effort and admire the spectacular failures they perpetrate. There is a reason why people love the 99 cent store. It is because they have so much cool stuff and it is cheap, but you don’t expect much from it. Actually you expect it to be poor quality and eventually break. The Clippers are the 99 cent store of the NBA, or at least that is what they should be. The league needs them to be. They are the one team that you used to be able to count on to over achieve, because you expected nothing. Making the playoffs as an 8th seed with Bo Outlaw as your starting power forward, now that was magical. Trying to make a 99 cent store into a whole foods is like trying to make the Clippers into a franchise like the Lakers, Spurs, Celtics, or shit even the Heat.
I think the Clipper fans who are disappointed by their loss are delusional, because it implies that a team can win a championship with a center who can’t make free throws or create his own shot. A power forward who has no go to move and can’t make a 15 foot jumper regularly and turns the ball over more in the last two minutes of the game than any other power forward. A starting Shooting Guard and Small Forward who would come off the bench on any other team. That has never happened in the history of the NBA and it will never happen in the future.
I am excited for these guys to leave and make their next teams great winners or losers just like many other clipper greats…. Lamar Odom, Zach Randolph, Quentin Richarson, The Candy Man, Elton Brand, and of course the tragic ending for those Clippers from the Bill Fitch years: RIP Malik Sealy who died in a car accident in 2000, Kevin Duckworth who died of heart disease in 2008 (not a huge surprise he was a fatty); Lorenzen Wright went missing and was murdered in 2010 (yikes), Dwayne Schintzius who died from cancer complications in 2012. Two other players from the Fitch days also suffered tragic circumstances of their own; Brian Williams (who later became known as Bison Dele because he was nuts) was murdered by his brother while the two were vacationing in 2002 in the South Pacific…yes his brother. Of course old lefty, Rodney Rogers who made being pudgy stylish, became paralyzed after a dirt bike crash in 2008 in North Carolina. Where in the world is Kieth Closs when you need him….China.
Follow up…fridge is closed, butter is getting hard and yes the jello is jiggling. Stick a fork in them. The clippers are done. Kudos Chandler for putting the team you want together.