Almost wrecked my car on the way back to the office listening to 710. Extreme Laker homer Mychal Thompson, who in seasons past seemingly delighted in denigrating the Clippers while effusing praise on the Lakers, said the Clippers now had the deepest rotation in the league and were seriously starting to scare him. He ended the conversation with a reporter at the Clippers media day with this: "Please," he pleaded. "Please tell me this is still the Laker's town."

I have a pair of nice tickets to tomorrow night's Thanksgiving game (11/25)  that I can't use. Section 115, Row 3, right behind press section. Game is at 7:30.  Please don't take them unless you're actually going to use them. First email to respond gets them. I will email them to you. Rest of this is to meet 75 word count to post:

Steve Perrin from ClipsNation.com talks about the brutal early season schedule for the Clippers: “The Clippers have played all nine of their games so far against those nine Western Conference teams that are above .500. There are five teams in the West below .500 (six counting the Clippers themselves) and the Clippers have yet to play a single one of them. The only two teams that the Clippers have faced so far that didn't make the playoffs last season just happen to be the biggest surprises in the NBA - the 7-0 Hornets and the 6-3 Warriors.”

He may not be wearing Clippers white when he takes the floor at Staples Center this season, but LeBron will apparently still put a few extra bucks in DTS' pocket for at least one game. Looks like the Clippers will use variable pricing (high demand game = high $$ tickets) this season, with tickets for the Miami game really jacked up. Here's an example of the difference in ticket prices for different opponents taken from the Ticketmaster website during this mornings STH pre-sale:

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So I’m at Game 1 of the National League Division Series, to watch the Dodgers duke it out with the Cardinals for the right to go on to the National League Championship Series and be embarrassed by the Phillies and their illustrious collection of such former Dodger legends as Shane Victorino, Jason Werth and the immortal Chan "2 Grand Slams In One Inning to Fernando Tatis" Park. I’m camped out near the Dodger dugout before the game with my trusty Canon 40D, when I notice the nice looking fellow loitering near the railing. "Hey!" thinks I, "isn’t that the carpenter guy from Home and Garden Television?" (Okay, so once in awhile I watch something other than sports ).

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Took in the Clippers opener last night. Phil Gurnee and I were eagerly awaiting the start of the game when we looked up and- lo and behold - just steps in front of us in the last row of the press box was our fearless leader, Steve Perrin. Phil and I introduced ourselves and it was great to finally meet the big guy. I didn't bring my good camera but luckily I had stuffed my point and shoot into my pocket as I was leaving the car because, as you will note from the Headline, I lucked into a once in a lifetime, very rare photo. Any way, I thought I'd share these with all of you.

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So this is what it feels like when Mom and Dad get a divorce.

Jaime and Frank McCourt have announced they’re splitsville. No, I’m not related. But I am a 30+ year season ticket holder of the Dodgers, the major league baseball team the McCourt’s happen to own, and what will no doubt be the most prized asset in their divorce, assuming they don’t kiss and make up. So I, as many Dodger fans will, stand to be traumatized by what happens to the team as a result of love gone bad.

Dodger owners Jaime and Frank McCourt, in a intimate moment from a few years ago, have recently announced their split. No truth to the rumor of a love triangle involving Tommy Lasorda, left.

For years Dodger fans were spoiled by the steady, paternalistic ownership of the O’Malleys. Walter O’Malley was very shrewd, and certainly never met a buck he didn’t want to make, but he did swing the sweet land deal for Chavez Ravine that resulted in the Dodgers moving west in 1958, and he did get one of the greatest baseball parks of all time, Dodger Stadium, built. He treasured it like the jewel it was (and still is) and for the most part provided good teams in a great ballpark at very reasonable prices. When his son Peter took over stewardship of the team, he seemed to always recognize and acknowledge that while the team belonged to his family, the entire city of Los Angeles had a very large equitable interest. He was one of the few owners of a professional team to seemingly put what his team meant to his city ahead of his personal interests.

When baseball economics got crazy, and no doubt scared by the labor strike in the mid-90's, Peter O’Malley determined that it was too risky to have his family’s entire wealth tied up in one professional sports team. He tried to cross-collateralize his investment by also acquiring a football team to play in a stadium to be built next to Dodgers stadium, which would have provided the investment diversity he needed to continue to own the Dodgers, but was blocked by councilman Mark-Ridley Thomas who was insistent that any new football team in Los Angeles play in the aging Coliseum, which happened to be in his district. Ever mindful of his civic responsibilities, Peter O’Malley backed off rather than start a fight a City Hall and reluctantly concluded that without the football team he would have to sell the Dodgers, which he did.

For those of us fans who consider ourselves part of the Dodger family, this began what feels like a bad trip through a twisted foster care program. Instead of the paternal O’Malleys, mom and pop was now Fox, the giant media conglomerate. Decisions were now being made by temperamental televison executives with no major league baseball experience, whose idea of running the team was to trade its best and most popular player, Mike Piazza, without consulting the team’s general manager to send a warning to the rest of the players to be reasonable at contract time or be gone.

If Fox proved to be a parent whose decision making skills were somewhat lacking, at least they had enough money that they didn’t have to jack up ticket prices. Enter the McCourts, who bought the team from Fox for what is estimated at 450 million. Unfortunately the McCourt’s didn’t have 450 million laying around, and if memory serves they borrowed most of the money for the purchase from Fox. An early version of the nothing down deals which have led to calamity in the mortgage industry. The McCourts secured the transaction with their major asset, some prime parking lots in Boston, from whence they came (hence the L.A. Times’ T.J. Simer’s nickname for Frank McCourt as "The Parking Lot Attendant"). The McCourts eventually sold the parking lots to pay Fox, but from the day they bought the team there has been rampant speculation that they really couldn’t afford it and lots of questions about whether they have enough remaining assets to adequately operate the Dodgers and keep the team and its stadium at the high level they have traditionally enjoyed.

Frank McCourt chats with Dodgers fans at a recent game

To their credit, the McCourts nixed proposals for a new stadium downtown near Staples Center (which they probably couldn’t afford anyway and for which there would be no public money) and announced that the beloved Dodger Stadium wasn’t going anywhere. They invested a lot of money in updating Dodger Stadium (or at least the Field Level, where the most expensive seats are), and managed to spend enough money - or acquire good players from other teams for nothing but minor league prospects - to keep the team competitive.

Ticket prices were another matter, however. It was as if mom and dad had suddenly announced that not only were you going to pay rent for your room, your room was now considered to be in the high rent district. Until the recession/depression hit last year, the McCourts substantially raised ticket prices every year. Recently it was announced that the first three rows in the seats closet to the Field would now run $200,000 a season for four seats. My own seats in the Loge went from $30 a seat to $50 a seat - a 66.66% increase - in two years. It was clear that the McCourts did not have the resources of a Fox corporation to subsidize baseball operations. In order to meet operating expenses and make enough profit to support themselves and the four expensive houses they would buy in the LA area (I’m still not sure why two people needs four homes unless they’ve each got a plaything stashed) the money would have to all come from the baseball business. They jacked up ticket prices and plastered advertising on what seemed like every square inch of Dodger Stadium. When Frank ordered the names removed from the back of the player’s jersey for one season I was sure it was because he wanted to replace them with more advertising. They also started marketing all kind of bizarre money-makers like sleep overs at Dodger Stadium, yoga classes with the team’s right fielder and $500 a pop events where you could take batting practice and have a meet and greet with a couple of Dodgers.

So what’s to become of us now? Recently a divorce forced the then owner of the San Diego Padres to sell that team, in order to equitably divide the marital assets. According to an article in the LA Times, Frank McCourt’s lawyer claims there in no chance that he will sell the team. The same report however, puts the value of the Dodgers at $722 million, with the value of the four houses in the neighborhood of $82 million. Clearly one McCourt can’t take the team with the other keeping the real estate.

Jaime McCourt at Game 1 of the National League Division Series, a few days before the break up was announced.

This is where things could get really interesting. How interesting may depend on the McCourts themselves. No gossip yet on what caused the split, but my guess is there must be some very messy and titillating details about to spill (don’t you just love a good scandal?) Why else would the McCourts have chosen the eve of the National League Championship Series in which their Dodgers will be playing the Phillies for the right to represent the National League in the World Series to suddenly announce their split? Couldn’t this have waited until after the play offs? I’m sure Major League Baseball can’t be too pleased with their timing. It’s as if Dad decided to use his toast at his daughter’s wedding to announce he’s coming out of the closet now.

Things have apparently been bad between Jaime and Frank for awhile. The McCourts use to be at almost every game together, but this season my wife often commented that Jaime never seemed to attend anymore. I noticed her at Game 1 of the National League Division Series, but instead of sitting next to her husband Frank, she sat several rows in front of him. I also thought it funny at the time that instead of something Dodger blue she was dressed all in black, like she was in mourning. Maybe she was. Anyway, surely they could have waited another couple of weeks to go public with the news. The fact that they didn’t leads me to believe they chose to go public before someone else did.

In any event, the McCourts have always been highly sensitive to bad publicity. So sensitive that since arriving here in LA they’ve gone through public relations specialists faster than Joe Torre does bullpen pitchers. They tend to toss PR guys or gals out with the bad news and bath water. Hopefully this will provide incentive to both of them to keep things civil and cooperate on a fair settlement that will provide a minimum of disruption to the team.

Unfortunately, when going through a divorce a lot of people don’t want fair - they want blood. If parting is such sweet sorrow, revenge is the sugar coma to end all sorrow. Having handled a few divorces in my time, when you get two very angry, irrational people going through a divorce all you can really do is step back and let your billings go through the roof.

How stupid can people going through a divorce be? I remember handling a divorce for a soap opera actor who came home from a movie shoot to find that while he was gone his wife - a soap opera actress - had literally backed up a truck to house and stripped it clean. Every last item they owned left in the back of that truck. She also cleaned out all the bank accounts. She even took his residual checks out of the mail, deposited them and took that money too.

I assured him that I would get his half back (California being a community property state). No he insisted. He didn’t want to get hung up in a long, messy and expensive divorce. All he wanted was a paper-mache statue that was his before they got married and wasn’t worth anything. It just had sentimental value to him. If she would give that back, she could keep everything else.

I told him that I didn’t recommend he do that, but if that’s what he wanted I would call her lawyer and make the offer. Her lawyer was thrilled. "Shouldn’t be a problem!" he kept chuckling. "I’ll highly recommend she take the deal. Let me call her and get back to you."

An hour later he called back.

"She won’t give it back."

The McCourts are both smart and shrewd business people. Jaime is also a lawyer, so she ought to know something about the futility of litigation. Often there’s a prevailing party in name only. If the real gains and losses are totaled, both sides lose. Conversely, if both sides are smart, civil and rational, they can make the best of a bad situation.

Will the McCourts? So far its not looking good. Reportedly on paper Frank is the sole owner of the Dodgers and all the real estate is in Jaime’s name only. Could be that they have some arrangement already in place, but Jaime doesn’t strike me as dumb enough to let Frank have a 700 million plus asset in return for some houses worth about 15% of that. Could be they set it up that way as some sort of protection against creditors in case they got in over their head.

In any event, Frank is supposedly now claiming the team is 100% his, and Jaime’s begging to differ. At this point you have to vote messy if you were predicting how this split is going to go. I never learn. A few years ago when I heard about the tv show "Celebrity Justice" I wondered how where they were going to find enough celebrity legal matters to fill a daily show. Turns out there’s as many or more troubled, rich famous people as troubled, not so rich not so famous people. Frank and Jaime are just the latest to the party.

If they do duke it out, they stand to not only embarrass themselves but the team, the town and the fans. The only one who may benefit (aside from their lawyers) might be Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling. Sterling is usually the poster boy here in LA for an owner with too many cents and too little sense, and has his own well documented legal troubles. Having the Dodgers collapse while Frank and Jaime squabble over ownership and control can only elevate his status.

When ownership and control of the team is in doubt, paralysis sets in. There may be delays in retaining key people, and those key people may decide not to wait around to see who wins or who loses. They may opt for more secure opportunities elsewhere. Players may not be able to be retained or free agents pursued because its not clear who can negotiate or authorize the contracts for them.

The best hope for us fans maybe for them to agree to sell the team. Of course we’d want the buyer to be someone like the Angel’s Arte Moreno, as opposed to another Fox. We don’t want the cure to be worse than the cold. Hey, maybe Scott Boras can use some of that money he’s fleeced from the Dodgers over the years to buy the team. It’d be nice to have him on our side of the negotiating table for a change.

Otherwise I don’t see how this can work. Even if the McCourts decide to keep the team as co-owners, there’s likely to be friction and factions. There will be Frank loyalists and Jaime loyalists. Ah the corporate politics that may portend. As an example, a few days before the announced break up, a Dodgers VP thought to be highly valued by the organization was told he should start looking for work somewhere else. His crime? Apparently he had aligned himself with Jaime. In short, it would be hard to picture the organization as having unity and clarity of vision with an ex-husband and wife sharing ownership. The more hostility there is between them the less likely everyone will be ho-ho-hoing it up at the annual Christmas party.

And if one of them agrees to let the other buy them out, where does the money come from? Maybe a new partner. Or maybe a loan. And if it’s a loan, you know what that means. Ticket increases across the board to pay for love gone bad.

Dodgers centerfielder Matt Kemp turned up at the Clippers game last night. He's apparently good friends with Clippers Number One draft pick Blake Griffin, and also seemed pretty chummy with former Clipper Corey Maggette, who now plays with the Warriors. Anyway, Phil Gurnee who sits nearby asked if I would post some pictures of Kemp here. So here you  go Phil:

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For those citizens with no tix or tv access, here's a look at the preseason action from last night's game:

(While they say a picture is worth a thousand words, that is not the case here on Clips Nation. In order to post this I have to have at least 75 words. This is almost as annoying as those having to type weird those twisted combo words on Ticketmaster before you can buy tickets, although today I took it as a good omen when the words "eliminate" and "Philadelphia" some how popped up together when I went to check on some tickets to the upcoming NLCS. Okay, that should be 75 words. Here's the photos:)

Dodgers centerfielder Matt Kemp takes in the game and chats with Corey Maggette

Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought the Clipper’s “We’re Playing To Win” ad campaign was lame, as the team has now switched to the (slightly) more rousing “It’s Game Time.”

I still think they could do better. Personally, I think they ought to go edgy - play up the underdog angle, make being scruffy and unloved cool, cultivate an identity as the anti-matter to the upscale and snooty Laker atmosphere. Avis worked wonders when they proclaimed Hertz was Number One but they tried harder. I think something similar would work for the Clippers. Screw everyone else, we're having a blast here (of course it would help if the team would win once in a while) - and if your missing you're missing something.

With that in mind and nothing better to do than goof around with Photoshop Elements for a couple of hours, I decided to throw together some fantasy Clipper ads. Couldn’t decide BG artwork I liked better, so I’m posting both. With apologies to Citizen Hip2Clip, I have borrowed your ID to use as the tag line: It’s Now Hip To Clip.

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Today is the presale for season ticket holders. I logged on to browse and around and it appears that the Clippers are adopting the variable pricing "premium game" strategy used by the Angels, Yankees and some other professional teams. For instance, if you request seats in the 200 section for say, Minnesota, the price is $40 each. For Dallas, its $50. For the Lakers or Cavs, it jumps to $75. The "face value" listed for tickets in the 200 section on the Clipper website is $60, so it looks for the majority of the teams you end up with a discount over face value and for the elite you have to pay extra.

Well, maybe we can get all bad luck out of the way before the season starts. Our own Blake Griffin had the honor of throwing out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium tonight. Did he bring the boys in blue any luck? Well as of this writing its the bottom of the 8th and they're down 4 zip to the lowly Dbacks.

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When I saw the full page ad in the LA Times over the weekend, featuring the same Blake Griffin under a spotlight photo which SP featured here a couple of weeks ago, with large type over it shouting "Blake Griffin Is Playing To Win", my first reaction was

"Duh."

This morning when a similar ad appeared picturing Baron Davis and with the same tag line, my reaction was "You've got to be kidding me. That's their ad campaign? Joe Blow is playing to win? Isn't every player in the NBA? Isn't that essentially the whole point? They're trying to win?

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The recent Bill Simmons piece about a Clipper image make over has had me thinking (something the wife had given up for dead). I’ve have had similar thoughts over the years about what it would take to bring the Clippers out from under the shadow of the purple and gold - new name, new uniform, etc. This being LA, it always seems to boil down to the “Cool Factor”. The Lakers are cool, the Clippers... well not so much.

Everyone wants to be cool. I’m going to go way out on a limb here and theorize that most us reading this blog on a regular basis have a long history - and hence strong tolerance - of not being cool. Most of us were probably the guys in high school who, had we dared to ask out one of the popular girls, would have been stared at with revulsion usually reserved for a Mumbai street beggar or like we just microwaved her cat. Following along with Simmons' use of movie references to the illustrate the point, I cite the 1978 classic “Animal House”. Most of us wouldn’t have been cool enough for the Omega house, and would have found ourselves with Belushi and Matheson in the reviled Delta house. Later we would grow up to be Clipper fans.

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Can we take a break for a moment from ruminating about Bill Simmons, worrying about Blake's shoulder, trying to sniff out news about making a move on Ramon Sessions and get to something really important? Your 2009-2010 Clipper dance team has been announced. Any thoughts on our new rookies? Here's the link

http://www.nba.com/clippers/dance/spirit.html

 

I have to add some words to get to 75, and these come to mind: if, and, or but, and the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy fence. Also, I swear dad it wasn't me. And no honey, I wasn't looking at her.

Here's another tweet from Eric Pincus today which involves both the Randolph trade and Shawn Marion:

"Clipper fans - Grizzlies are busy trying to help Marion get to Dallas - Clipper trade not in danger but on hold til that's resolved" http://twitter.com/ericpincus

Judging from the recent posts, there's going to be a lot of angry folks on this blog if Marion ends up in Dallas and it somehow causes the Randolph trade to unwind.

At the end of last season, Clipper management met with VIP season ticket holders and promised them that this season the team would be more “uptempo”, apparently in an effort to assuage the mounting frustration with Coach Dunleavy.

There is no longer any doubt that Coach Dunleavy is staying. We also know from past experience (i.e. statements during the euphoria around this time last year when Baron Davis was signed) that there is a big difference between saying you can coach a running offense and actually doing it, or at least attempting to do it with your heart in it. We spent last year for the most part watching the same half-court iso stuff Dunleavy has usually favored. Any type of high octane offense built around Baron’s game went out the window with Baron’s injuries and/or slide into mediocrity, and Dunleavy’s decision to bring in Randolph to replace Brand in the supposedly 6,000 or so plays in his playbook, all of which seem to feature dumping the ball to a post player (Randolph or Brand) for an iso match up.

The trade of Randolph would seem to indicate that the Clippers may well be serious about an up tempo offense this season. By trading Randolph, MDsr has given up his one dependable iso guy. He can have the ball go down to Kaman, but Kaman will insist on bouncing it once or twice before going up, and probably lose it in the process (At one of the Clipper Coaches clinics, an assistant Coach just shook his head in woe when asked why Kaman insists on putting the ball on the floor and said if anyone had any suggestions they’d love to hear them). Or they can get it to Al, who will likely nearly dribble out the clock before deciding to go up for a jump shop in the 10.0 degree of difficulty category.

Letting go of Randolph, while retaining Kaman - who Dunlevary likes to point out is a pretty quick center who can get up and down the court and play defense - seems to indicate the Coach does have running on his mind. This is particularly so since reports have it that DTS was actually against the Randolph trade, and the trade was thus not about saving money. Reports say DTS would only agree to the Randolph trade if it was based on basketball, not fiscal, sense. The only basketball sense that can seemingly be made of it is that the Clippers are trying to reinvent themselves as a running, up tempo team to feature the talents of their number 1 draft pick (who cannot only post but also run) and a certain highly paid point guard who prefers a running approach. Kaman fits well with this approach. And this is what was promised to the VIP season ticket holders. Did they really mean it when they first said it? Or was getting Blake the impetus? Don’t know, but it appears about to come true.

A team can always be reinvented of course - it’s a matter of just assembling the right pieces for what you’re trying to do. But since MDsr is both the Coach and GM here, he’s the one doing the re-inventing. And it seems to truly re-invent the Clippers, he’s got to re-invent himself. Can an old dog learn new tricks?

Reports are that that Bucks may waive Bruce Bowen after the trade with SA:

"Speculation about the three-team trade that sent Bowen, and Kurt Thomas to Milwaukee, in exchange for Bucks forward Richard Jefferson, and Fabricio Oberto eventually to Detroit, with the Pistons sending forward Amir Johnson to the Bucks, includes a presumption that the Bucks will waive Bowen and the Pistons will waive Oberto. The contracts of both players are 50 percent guaranteed, giving their new teams a chance to remove about $2 million from their respective payrolls. If the Bucks do waive Bowen, he will be free to sign with any team,,, "

Anyone see the Clippers picking him up?