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