So I'm sure we can all agree that Blake Griffin's awesomeness is the reason for the recent turnabout in this franchise. Well I wanna take everyone back to the 2009-2010 season for a completely hypothetical, might not have even happened scenario just for laughs and giggles and good ol' blog speculation.

So the 09-10 season was supposed to be the original rookie year for Blake Griffin but we all know that he got injured and was delayed till the following season. In that season, we still had Mike Dunleavy as a coach, Marcus Camby, Chris Kaman, and DeAndre Jordan were our front court, Baron Davis and Eric Gordon was our back court, and SF kept rotating between Al Thornton, Rasaul Butler, and occasionally Ricky Davis. And our bench had the great Brian Skinner, Mardy Collins, Craig Smith, Sebastion Telfair, Steve Novak. Midway through the season after the infamous waterpipe game at Memphis, the whole team took a new identity by trading away Camby, Telfair, and Thornton for Drew Gooden, Travis Outlaw, and Steve Blake, none of them staying after the season. And we also fired Dunleavy and had Kim Hughes coach for a bit. And the offseason after was the great Lebron sweepstakes that saw the Clippers not really try and losing out on LBJ and grabbing Ryan Gomes/Foye/Cookie instead.

So now after that history lesson, what if Blake Griffin never got injured in pre-season and instead had his fantastic rookie year during that season. How different would our team be today. Now remember, this is all hypothetical and based on assumptions. But I'm assuming with Griffin, our team would've done a lot better than we actually did. Dunleavy was able to coach that ragtag group close to .500 until the Memphis game. I'm guessing with Griffin, our record might have been a lot better. And because our record wasn't so bad, the team would not have given up and traded away Camby, Thornton, and Telfair for rentals. And more importantly, I don't think Dunleavy would have been fired had the team was actually decent that year.

And to take it one step further, Griffin's star power in his rookie year was able to convince Chris Paul to come play with us, what if we were able to convince Lebron James out of going to Miami with his friends to come play for the Clippers that offseason. Our biggest hole was SF and every other position was pretty filled up and ready to roll.

Would you guys have taken this team of

C - Kaman

PF - Blake

SF - LBJ

SG - EJ

PG - Baron Davis

Bench - DJ, Camby, Rhino, Thornton, Telfair

And Coach Mike Dunleavy

Over what we have today?

In order to keep the dice rolling on the series, here's the class of 2005, also known as the year the Clippers went to the playoffs.

Continue reading this post »

Thanks to Citizen peterghost for coming up with a fine idea to help us move through this lockout summer. I'm bumping it to the front page, and endorsing the idea fully. May I suggest in fact that other citizens use the comments to sign up for other draft years to keep the series going but spread the workload (and the fun). Steve

Since there's nothing really to talk about besides the lockout in the NBA world, thought I'd start a small series for discussion in Clippers Nation. 

As Clippers fans, the draft is something we all usually look forward to.  It gives us a hope for the future that maybe someone we drafted will lead our not so great team into something greater.  But for the most part, our draft picks don't usually pan out like we hope for them to.  The reason I'm starting with 2007 is because our draft picks since 2008 are still with the team and doesn't make much sense to talk about them at the moment.  Everyone else before 2008 though besides Chris Kaman have come and gone and let's see what happened to them.

Continue reading this post »

After reading the Taylor Griffin fanpost, I was inspired to write about more Griffins we should sign.  I read these in the comments and thought they be great new people to replace Foye and Gomes.  

First let's start with brother Taylor Griffin.  The older brother of Blake Griffin who needs to keep his rowdy little brother in check from hurting all the great big NBA players.

via phoenix.fanster.com

Then we have "comedian" Kathy Griffin

via www.hollywoodgo.com

A face like that has to scare away any one trying to drive into the middle.  Plus we all know how much DTS loves Caucasians!

Then there's Merv Griffin who I don't even know who he is but he looks old so he can probably provide that veteran leadership we all want.

via t1.gstatic.com

But why stop there, we need Blake Griffin to be with more Griffins, therefore I propose we call up FOX and get the Griffin family starring Peter Griffin as the lovable big man of the squad.

via static.tvfanatic.com

Blake Griffin also seems like a funny guy so he needs funny people which is why we should also get Eddie Griffin

via 2.bp.blogspot.com

Blake Griffin also needs someone from the hood, straight from the streets as an enforcer to protect him from the other team.  Cause you know, grown men who've been playing basketball for many years don't know how to take care of themselves.  So I suggest we bring up William Michael Griffin, also known as legendary rapper Rakim to do that.

via beyondrace.com

You think this would keep Blake Griffin happy so he will never leave me?

Read this on the other fanpost and got interested so I just wanted to start up the poll to see the preferences of the other members of Clipsnation.  I have family in USC which is why I root for them. 

What about everyone else?

And also to keep the conversation going, what colleges did everyone go to or is currently attending?  I'm going to Cal State Fullerton right now and I remember reading I got some Titan Alumnis around here too.  Go CSUF!

After watching the Lakers/Suns series, I just wanna ask...

Where the hell was this Alvin Gentry when he was head coaching the Clippers?!!?

I watched how he managed the Suns and I just kept thinking to myself, why could he not have done this back when he had a bunch of great up and coming stars and a great young lineup. 

Not a big deal, just irked me a bit because I remember that year the Clippers were close to being in the playoffs then the next year with a better lineup, the team fell apart.

I noticed we don't discuss the playoffs here as often which is understandable since the majority of us don't like Lakers, Boston, or Suns.  But in the interest of discussing playoffs with my Clippers bros instead of arrogant Lakers fans, I just wanted a fanpost to see your thoughts and opinions.

Lakers lost tonight and I hope they lose the series.  Magic pretty much lost unless Vince Carter and Rashad Lewis goes beastmode the next 3 games.  But I really want to see Suns against Celtics just to see run and gun offense vs. lockdown defense and see what happens.  Perfect matchup between two different styles.

Anyways, playoff discussion!

Anyone got any updates on him?

Anyways, I just wanted to start some new chatter, that doesn't involve dumping Chris Kaman or Baron Davis for a bag of Oreos, about our soon to be favorite star rookie who I am looking forward to seeing.  All this talk about tanking to get a future star on the team makes me think that you guys forgotten about our other future star.  Blake Griffin is going to be beast next season, (provided he stays healthy and away from Craig Smith of course). 

via the1cory.files.wordpress.com

2010-2011 Rookie of the year? hell yeah

I'm pretty sure you guys don't have the same opinion, but I always liked Al Thornton.  He was one of own drafted players and proved to be serviceable.  I remembered when he was our lone bright spot in 07-08 and a nice scoring option in 08-09.  It's too bad he got traded away but I think he'll do well on his own in Washington.  I hope he becomes an all-star one day and leads the Wizards to the playoffs or something.  He obviously wasn't going to be able to do it here. 

Thoughts on trading away our first round pick from 3 years ago?

Seeing how a two game losing streak really bought down the spirit of Clipper nation, I thought I'd make a small fan post to try cheering people up for the holidays. 

So after receiving dvds of the show The Wire, I have came to the conclusion.

This guy

looks a lot like

this guy

William Rawls, one of the bosses at the Baltimore police department in the show The Wire.  Besides these two guys looking a like, they also possess similar characteristics.  Both of them are in charge but are both incompetent at what they do.  Dunleavy has to report to Sterling and Rawls reports to a number of corrupted individuals.  And Rawls cares about the statistical performance of his department, while Dunleavy seems like a pretty stats-obsessive guy himself.  

And for anyone who hasn't seen the Wire yet, you are missing out.

I'd like to give everyone a happy thanksgiving.  I know we all had a rough night last night with the loss but today let's be thankful and celebrate.

I'm thankful to be part of a tightknit community of Clippers fan even though sometimes we do not all get along.  But it beats being a Lakers fan.

I'm thankful that the team is mostly healthy, just another 2 weeks or so for Griffin.  No more excuses Dunleavy.

I'm also thankful to not be the Nets right now and haven't won a game yet.  It's true everyone, some people have it worse than us.

What is everyone else thankful for?

It's game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, Lakers vs Clippers in an epic hallway series.

Blake Griffin is the rookie of the year and with MVP candidate Eric Gordon, and Most Improved played of the year, Al Thornton has become a big 3 combination that has been nicknamed the 3 Headed Dragon by ESPN. Baron Davis taking a backseat to the 3 youngsters showed great leadership capabilities and motivation and was able to control his team through thick and thin. Kamen stayed healthy for the entire year and is back to his Kamen 2.0 days. The bench has never been stronger with DeAndre Jordan named 6th Man of the year, Ricky Davis becoming a great locker room guy to have around, Sebastion Telfair showing great point guard skills that Sessions was never needed in the Clippers, and Novak/Butler coming in whenever a bunch of 3 pointers need to be made. MDsr even took the Phil Jackson approach and just sits there while Baron Davis leads his team.

The team went through trials and tribulations throughout the season and the playoffs just to get to this point in time.  By fighting hard in a stacked conference, they were able to sneak their way into the 7th seed of the Western Conference.  They started out the postseason by eliminating the Spurs in a series that no one thought they could have won.  But Tim Duncan's age was showing and Blake Griffin was able to take advantage of it.  The next round though was against the Blazers, another strong team.  But our 3 headed dragon destroyed the Blazers with a 4 game sweep.  The next and biggest challenge was the Lakers though, the cross team rivals that was favorites to win the whole thing.  But the Clippers handled the challenge and took the epic series to the final seconds.

Game 7 of the Western Conference finals, there are only 12 seconds left in the game and the Lakers are up by 2 points and it is their ball right now. Shannon Brown inbounds the ball to Ron Artest whose been having trouble because of Al Thornton's incredible defense on him. Ron Artest, seeing desperation, tosses the ball to Kobe Bryant, only for Baron Davis to quickly steal the ball from him Ariza style.

Baron quickly calls their last timeout. Thornton voluntarily puts himself on the bench so Butler, the better 3 point shooter can come in. The game resumes with 4 seconds left, Blake Griffin on center, Gordon/Novak/Butler spreading the floor, and Baron Davis inbounding. With none of the 3 point threats opened, Baron passed it to Blake Griffin who instantly gets a double team. But this left Eric Gordon opened who Blake passed it to. EJ quickly fired the 3 with the clock running out and makes it! The Clippers just defeated the defending champions and are now going to Finals to face Lebron and his Cavs.

I think everyone here is getting ahead of themselves with the whole 2010 thing.  Yeah we now have a lot of cap space after trading Randolph and our future is looking bright.  But we should worry about how to improve this season instead of the one after.  When I read the comments and see most of you guys talking about our 2010 plan, I wonder "what 2010 plan?" cause really our future revolves around EJ and Blake right now.  Instead of dreaming that one day, Lebron James or Dwayne Wade is going to be in a Clippers uniform, which they probably won't, we should discuss how to strengthen what we already got for this season. 

I honestly can see a future in the playoffs this season if Blake Griffin lives up to the hype, Eric Gordon continues to improve, DJ and Mike Taylor start living up to their potential, Baron Davis become the team leader he was back in Golden State, and we are not hit with the injury bug like the last several years.  We have a strong lineup this year with the subtraction of Zach Randolph, and I think we can be serious playoff contenders.

And yeah, I don't really mind the 2010 talk, but we should be focusing on the now instead of the future.  Just my little 2 cents