Tilting at Windmills

Barring a plague of locusts or a river of fire, Blake Griffin will be a Clipper tonight.

For their part, the Clips are already saying they’ll take him. Blake is doing and saying all the right things and it appears as if he was even eager to get to LA before the draft lottery.

The glamour of New York isn’t lost on the always straight-forward Griffin, and when asked, he doesn’t hide the appeal he finds in landing in a major media market like New York or Los Angeles.

“Definitely. I would love to play in a big city like that.”

Good for you, Blake, and congratulations, but … dude, the Clippers?!? Can you not pull a last-minute Kobe or Eli and just refuse to go? It’s assured that by being the #1 pick, you’ll go to a shitty team. But, there are shitty teams and there are the Clippers.

ESPN’s Bill Simmons wrote a great open letter to Blake, begging him to save his career and eschew the Clips.

One of my favorite nuggets:

Summer 1981: Donald Sterling buys the Clippers from Levin for $12.5 million, embarks on a quest to turn them into the worst franchise ever … and succeeds. You’ll see him at home games, Blake. He’s the old guy who sits midcourt, dresses like a nightclub singer, surrounds himself with cougars, loves Koreans and enters the locker room once a year to scream at everyone. Keep your distance.

Yeah, that Donald Sterling.

Blake, consider your options. You have some.

If the Los Angeles Clippers do as they say and take Blake with the number one pick in the June 25 NBA Draft, The Beast will work for one of the biggest douches in professional sports, which is saying a lot.

Fuck you, I'm still El Jefe!

Donald Sterling, who made his bajillions by acquiring real estate in the Los Angeles area and redlining (allegedly) the units, bought the San Diego Clippers in 1981 for $12.5 million. He’s seen that asset (that’s all he considers it – a financial asset) into a $297 million franchise. Sounds like a great ROI, right? A team that Sterling has run with a green fist for almost 30 years is the #25 valued franchise in professional basketball.

Now, granted I’m a writer and fairly shortbus when it comes to numbers, but Forbes magazine isn’t:

The Los Angeles Clippers lease at the Staples Center sums up owner Donald Sterling’s philosophy of running the franchise: maximize profits by keeping fixed costs low. The Clippers pull in less revenue from premium seating and arena advertising than the typical NBA team. But they pay only $1.5 million a season in rent at the arena, which is owned and operated by AEG, owner of the Los Angeles Kings and a minority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers. The Clippers have posted more than $9 million in operating profits the past five seasons despite fielding one of the worst teams in the league.

What that says to me is that not only will Sterling not provide corn dogs on Corn Dog Night, he won’t even go to the trouble to do the promotion in the first place.

Corn dogs, Donald! Corn dogs!

Miserly finances are just a bit part of Sterling’s asshattery, though. Here’s a brief rundown of the sterling career of one of professional sports’ biggest Scrooges:

• In 2005, he was ordered to pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit in which he refused to let non-Koreans live in his properties in Koreatown.
• Also in 2005, Sumner Davenport, hired by Sterling as property manager over a shitton of his holdings, alleged sexual harassment. Davenport alleged that Sterling “tried to kiss her and touch her breast, and he once appeared at the door of his Malibu home clad only in a towel.” Sterling responded with character assassination and was cleared of the charges.
• In 2003, he testified about a $500 a night “freak” (read: hooker) he paid to screw “all over my building, in my bathroom, upstairs, in the corner, in the elevator.” Sterling rationalized it by saying “well, I fool around sometimes.”

Sterling’s legal troubles are far from over, too. He’s now being sued by Hall of Famer, Top 50 NBA Player of All-Time and City of Angels icon, Elgin Baylor, for wrongful termination of his role as Clippers’ General Manager (a title he held for 22 years). Baylor’s letting it all hang out, too:

• Baylor alleges that Sterling wouldn’t rent to Hispanics and African-Americans in Beverly Hills because “Hispanics smoke, drink and just hang around the building” and “Black tenants smell and attract vermin.” Impressive.
• After taking Danny Manning with the #1 pick in 1988, Sterling balked at the amount of jack due the Kansas star. “I’m offering a lot of money for a poor black kid,” Sterling allegedly told Baylor.
• The reason behind the suit is just as odious: Baylor alleges he was “grossly underpaid” ($350k per year) and “unceremoniously released … on account of his age and his race.” Apparently Baylor thinks new coach and GM Mike Dunleavy’s $5 million salary is a little skewed.

Talk to the hand, Elgin.

If you have a few minutes an hour, there’s a great read in Sterling’s hometown LA Times about how his supposed philanthropic project to house the homeless is really “a troubling, ego-inflating gimmick dreamed up by a very rich man.” In fact, many in LA doubt the project even exists, except in large font sizes within expensive advertisements.

So, Blake … good luck. You’re about to get a quick lesson in the hard world of professional sports and slimeball billionaires who run the show. Our advice: play basketball to the best of your ability, sock as much money away as you can, keep your nose clean and if you do in fact end up playing for Sterling and the Clips, get the hell out of there ASAP.

Raise your glasses to half-full, y’all. It could be worse.

The Los Angeles junior varsity may have won the NBA draft lottery last night, but here’s hoping they do something stupid like not taking Blake with their first pick. Unfortunately for those of us who want to see Blake not only do well, but do it on a good, well-run team, we have to hope Blake falls to two or three. The Clips have a habit of not only making bad draft day decisions, but in the decisions they sometimes make in drafting good talent, they run it off.

Case(s) in point:

1985 – Benoit Benjamin, 3rd overall pick – You can go back almost 25 years to see horrible draft trends by this organization. Benjamin was picked third in 1985 behind Patrick Ewing and Wayman. He was never even remotely in the same class those guys, nor those drafted behind him – players such as Xavier McDaniel, Chris Mullin, Charles Oakley, The Mailman, Joe Dumars and Terry Porter. Benjamin played enough games for the Clips to be the franchise’s leading shot blocker, which is kind of like being the tallest guy at a midget convention.

1988 – Danny Manning, 1st overall pick – Maybe the Clips’ most productive first round pick, Manning ended up playing for five years in NBA Purgatory. Of course, owner Donald Sterling refused to put anything around him, so the Manning Clips sucked balls, which didn’t break a single Sooner heart.

1998 – Michael Olowokandi, 1st overall pick (the last time the Clips took the #1 pick) – Kandiman was a big, supposedly mobile guy out of Pacific U. That’s it. He’s widely considered to be the biggest bust in NBA history. LA owner Donald Sterling passed on Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Dirk Nowitzki, Paul Pierce, Mike Bibby and Rashard Lewis to take this stiff.

1999 – Lamar Odom, 4th overall pick. The Clips looked like they had a bonafide star when they took Odom out of Rhode Island. The 6’10″ softie averaged 17 ppg his first two years and the Clips put him with emerging stars like Andre Miller, Michael Olowokandi and eventually, bonafide playmaker Elton Brand. Odom liked the herb more than he liked his NBA paycheck, though, and the NBA suspended him in November 2001. In the offseason, the Clips didn’t even whimper when the Miami Heat picked him up. He started 80 games for the Heat, then was dealt to the Lakers as part of the Shaq deal. Now playing for the real LA team, Odom taunts the Clippers in the same arena where he used to roll blounts made out of Sterling’s pay stubs.

2000 – Darius Miles, 3rd overall pick. Miles went from high school in 2000 to NBA All-Rookie in 2001. The Clips rewarded him by letting him bolt after two years. Miles has bounced around with three different NBA franchises since then, his most productive years coming in Portland. His career is in jeopardy now since, after being suspended in 2008 for violating the league’s anti-drug program (read: weed), last week when the Memphis po-po asked what that console thing was in his car, he replied “you put your weeeed in it.”

2001 – Tyson Chandler, 2nd overall pick. The only time Chandler even touched a Clippers jersey was when NBA reps called his name at the rostrum. Dealing Chandler immediately to the Bulls for Elton Brand was probably the Clips’ best draft day move of all-time, although that’s like saying the Soul is the coolest Kia ever built. Chandler started three of four years for the Bulls, but never averaged in double figures in either points or rebounds. Brand ended up leading the Clips to their first playoff series win since they moved to LA, although it took four years.

2005 – Yaroslav Korolev, 12th overall pick – He speaks English without an interpreter. He probably tears up the Russian league, but who knows. I wouldn’t know this guy if I literally ran into him. Worst foreign pick in the NBA since Uwe Blab.

So, what trends say is that the Clips will either draft Blake and he’ll languish on a bad team (Baron Davis’ knees notwithstanding) or Sterling will do something stupid like passing him up in favor of Ricky Rubio. The latter scenario would likely send Blake to Memphis, unless the Grizz brainfarts and take their coveted Thabeet. Put that perfect storm together and it’s hello Oklahoma City!