In case anyone's around, here's a place to chat.  I've got to practice guitar, so I'll be in and out.  As dialogue may be scarce, feel free to just throw down any observations/impressions. After the 1st half, here are a few of my own.

1. DJ is for real.  Put him against 2nd string centers this year and watch him grow into a force.

2. Kareem is good.  He manages to get to the right place on the floor.  I like having him in there.

3. Telfair needs to resist the jump shot and drive instead.  His speed and passing are impressive.  His 3 pt attempts are not.

4. Griffin has had some tough calls tonight.  Thumbs up on his tenacity, though.

5. Kaman looks good, a steadying presence.  Mr Dependable?

6. Craig Smith, Mr Rhinoceros. Wanna bruise the other guy? Give him the ball and stand back.   

7. Thornton can grab a rebound if and when he makes up his mind.  

8. The Clips are best when Baron's around.

9. Check out a couple of DJ's 1st quarter slams.  It's fun when he and Griffin are playing together. 

Here's one that they should put on a math test:

Last night, Spenser Hawes, the starting center for Sacramento, played 30 minutes and finished with a miserable +/- of MINUS 26.  He was the only center for the Kings who saw playing time.  For that matter, there were only two PFs for the Kings who got in.  One was the starter Jason Thompson, who was in the game for 22 minutes.  (The other, Sean May, played only 19 minutes).  Since Hawes and Thompson both started, I would have to guess that they played most of Thompson's 22 minutes together.  If not, then the time alone should have hurt Thompson's +/-, being without a center and all.  (Channing Fry, the Sun's center, played a solid 35 minutes and finished +33). However, one way or another, Thompson ended up with a +12, a full 38 points ahead of Hawes.  Impressive.  I'm left to surmise, should we wish an explanation, that when Thompson left the game, for the 8-15 minutes that Hawes was still in the game, the Kings must have utterly fallen off a cliff.  We're talking Deep Impact here.  38 points.  With Thompson out and Hawes in, the Kings were bleeding at a rate of ~3 points per minute.  That's something I would have enjoyed watching.

There are other possible explanations, if we fish around.  Sean May ended up +1, so maybe the two PFs spent most of their time on the floor together, leaving poor Hawes on his own against Frye and Stoudemire.  I suppose it's possible, assuming Coach Westphal is a sadist.  The next place I'd look would be from a teammate's unusually strong performance... who inexplicably would have been on the bench, hanging with Thompson, during Hawes' gruesome fiasco. But Kevin Martin was -14 in 29 minutes, and after that, the only significant King in positive land was Desmond Mason with +5 in 20 minutes.  Weird.

 All of this is entertaining in its own right, but my real point is that this +/- stat raises too many questions and tends to leave fans like me hanging in the lurch. What we need (Hell, what I demand!) is a more sophisticated, interactive box score to help us tease out the answers.  For starters, I want to see a game flow chart that can be manipulated, so that we can see how the score fluctuated while a particular player was in the game.  (Take the ordinary flow chart and HIGHLIGHT the times that Hawes was in there).  I also want to be able to take my cursor and point at different points on this chart, so that I can see which teammates Hawes was playing with at different times.  While we're at it, why not use the +/- to compare SQUADS, starters vs starters (minimum 4 starters) and Subs vs Subs (minimum 3), so that we might compare an individual with his squad's overall performance. 

I'm a little crazy, I know, but my sanity is only a few clicks away.     

A good start is a good thing.  Horse jockeys and pick-up artists will tell you so.  Musicians will as well. Long ago, Beethoven's Fifth set the standard for great beginnings.  

On the flip slide, a bad start can be awful.  Think of a high-diver who falls off a 10 meter board.  Or that time you spilled coffee during a job interview.  Egad, or how about that clumsy first half the Clips had in the last Warrior game.  Talk about distressing. 

But then the Clips had their second half comeback, which felt unusually important.  BD looked to be setting a tone: "This season, when need be, we'll be the team coming from behind, rather than losing from ahead."  

More important than a pre-season Warrior game, of course, is the start of the real season.  In case you haven't checked, our first ten games are against the Lakers (away), Pheonix, Utah (away), Dallas, Minnesota, Warriors (away), Memphis, New Orleans, Oklahoma City, and Toronto.

Man, I'd love to get off to a good start.  On the flip side, I dread having a bad one.  I started out to create a poll, then, that asked "how many of these early games do you think we'll win."  But I was weary of too much optimism.  "Ten out of ten, of course!" Or from some of you, the poll might even indulge an unwelcome pessimism. To avoid such extremes, I came up with an interesting twist.  

Suppose you're hanging out with your annoying 2nd cousin, and he starts laughing about how the Clippers stink and that they'll be lucky to win more than 1 of their first 10 games.  You happen to have a wad of cash in your pocket, so you ask if he'd care to place a wager.  "I bet you $___ that the Clippers will win __ out of their first 10."  

What numbers do you put in the blanks? 

In the survey below, I ask just for your number of wins.  I should point out: you don't want to pick a number that's too low (losing face to your cousin) or too high (throwing your money away).  So how many wins is risky but within your sense of reality?

As for your proposed dollar amount, let's see it in the comments (include your # of wins, if you dare).  I take $1 to mean that you are VERY UNSURE... you really don't have a good feel for the team yet.  On the other hand, $100 (or more) shows that you REALLY THINK you have this team figured out.  But be forewarned, we'll all be able to look back and see who the biggest losers are.  On the other hand, I might invite the biggest winners to Vegas for games 11 thru 20.  

Your Honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury, a serious crime is about to be committed.  I know that this must sound strange, at least in a couple of ways.  First, the matter before us is SERIOUS, unlike our recent deliberations over Blake Griffin's nickname.  Second, this crime HAS NOT YET HAPPENED.  Frankly, we don't even know what it's going to be, nor if it will be justified.  So your task today is strange, yes, but all the same we ask you to pass judgement.  

Specifically, what are the Clippers going to do about Kareem Rush?  And moreover, will their decision be justified? It appears that either way the team goes, they stand to be accused.    

The evidence before the court is plain and uncontested. The Clippers invited Mr Rush to join their camp this preseason, despite having 14 players signed and unlikely to take on a 15th.  Still, Kareem has seen significant minutes in 4 out of 5 games and has shot well in 3 of them, including 2 clutch 3-pointers at the end of last night's game against Utah.  If he gets some opportunity and plays well in tonight's big game against the Fakers, then we're likely to see a much larger press corps in this courtroom tomorrow.  People will be asking, "Do the Clipper's have serious intentions for Mr Rush? Or is this just part of some devious Sterling ploy? Who really has a shot here, then... K.R.?"  

Various experts have been speculating about which 8 teams will make the playoffs in the Western Conference.  Common wisdom says San Antonio, the Lakers, Denver, Portland, Utah, and Dallas have the edge to get in.  New Orleans is usually included here too, but their roster, with new starters and a lousy bench, leaves me unconvinced.  After that, IMO, the most serious contenders are Phoenix, Houston, and our Clippers.  That leaves four teams for two slots.  Or is there a fifth, you think? 

Hoooya, Go Clips!!  Having some fun here now, giving a few of those nicknames a test run.  Always love to hear opinions, too... but let's try not to blow a gasket.  

"Gasol tosses the ball in, and here come the Fakers.  Fisher brings the ball down and the Clippers set their D.  The Fakers swing it around... to Artest, and now to Kobe with EJ on him.  Gasol comes to set a pick... Clippers rotate well, Lighthouse Griffin directing traffic.  Kobe drives anyway, down the baseline 1 on 4.  Triple pump twisting reverse... Swatted away by Blake Superior!!  BG says, "You're kidding, right?" Kobe whines to the refs... he's still whining... he's going to phone his mother!  Ball over to Boom Dizzle now... He pulls up at the top of the key and sets up the G-Force, Gordon to his left and Blake Interior working the post.  BD tries to get it inside, can't do it, passes it to G-Rex instead, who quickly gets it in to BGriff.  With the ball now, backing in on Odom...  Lighthouse draws the double team and scans for the outlet.  He spots Kobe loafing in the back court, showing off his wristwatch to a Faker-girl.  Kobe's standing there scratching his balls, folks.  Good grief...   Out to Baron now, over to G-Rex again, Blake Exterior moving to set a pick.  EJ shakes his man, passes it to BG, now back again... Shake N Blake!!  Gordon's reverse layup bounces off the rim... But Blake Superior with the rebound and slam!!  Hoooya!!  (Oh man, somebody please help Kobe with his jock strap)."

There are things out there that make me go MMMM.  Chris Kaman is one.  My ex-girlfriend is another.  In rather dissimilar ways, they each manage to please, confound, and torture me.  Evidently, too, they each know how to stir things up with more than one person at a time.  MMMM.  But what does one do when a relationship is pretty preposterous for parts of the whole?  Do you suppose, for instance, that we should stick it out with Kaman, or should we move on and play the field? And if we do move on, who else do we have our eyes on?  If only girlfriends also came with tradable contracts...

All summer long, the press has been hurling tomatoes at Al Thornton, seemingly for being a "merely good" talent who bothers to show up and shoot the ball.  Haven't we heard: He should rebound more, pass better, and play stronger defense, regardless of how his teammates are performing.  Hardly fair, and I imagine it's been a hard time for AT.  Well, the summer's over, and now that he's part of a revamped roster, Al has a better chance to show us what he's made of. Will he emerge then as a bounding beast, or will he stay cemented in his habits? Will he grow wily, or will he turn stinky? Just what kind of an entity are we looking at here?

Enough of what the experts are saying.  Do any of them have their hearts on the line?  Hollister thinks the Clippers will finish one game ahead of the Twolves.  I ask you, is he being vindictive? Psychotic? A creature of habit?  Enough, I say! Let's take back control of...  errr, of what we think is going to happen.  Give us your votes, Clip folks!  Who better than us to say how good we are?

Assuming for the moment that Griffin and Camby actually start together, I started worrying today about Kaman and Smith playing together on the 2nd team.  They both can score, sure, but won't we take a big hit defensively? --Until now, I hadn't thought much about the starting squad in terms of who then would be coming off the bench.  We need a set a 2nd stringers who play reasonably well together on both ends of the floor.  I confess, though, that I don't have a great grasp of many of our players' defensive talents.  So I put it to you all... On a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), how do our guys rate defensively, given their respective positions?  (I know that judging defense really isn't so simple, since there are different sorts of defensive skills, but I ask you to simplify).  I don't know how to create a survey chart for this sort of question, which is too bad (help, anyone?).  Rather than ask you all to rate the whole team, maybe you could just rate whichever guys you're most familiar with.   If enough people respond, I'll go through it and post up the average for each player.