If I told you today, you wouldn't believe it. It's impossible to fathom. The Los Angeles Clippers were one foul away from a possible Western Conference Finals berth.
The Clippers were creating a new destiny for themselves. No longer was Los Angeles' other team the joke of the league, they had all the pieces to be a contender for years to come. At the same time, the Lakers were going nowhere. The Lakers had the longest playoff series win drought between the two teams.
Two years later, the Lakers are back on top of the West. The Clippers are drafting in the lottery for the second straight year.
Did the 2005-06 season really happen?
Were the stars just aligned right with all the cosmos and energy pointing the way of the Clippers for that one year?
If you are like most and don't believe it happened, let me remind you.
During that season, many felt the Clippers had too much talent. The starting lineup consisted of Elton Brand and Chris Kaman in the post. E.B. was becoming one of the best power forwards in the game. Chris Kaman was finally providing dividends on the Clippers drafting him in an overloaded-with-talent 2003 draft. The Clips had Quinton Ross, the poor man's Bruce Bowen. In the backcourt, Los Angeles touted a veteran, experienced Sam Cassell and Cuttino Mobley. Corey Maggette provided a 20-point scorer off the bench. The addition of Vlad Radmanovic gave the Clippers a three-point specialist, and Shaun Livingston was the future.
Everything seemed to be headed to a championship. The team had youth, leadership, scorers, defense, and everything in between. You would be a fool not to think this team had the goods to be successful for years to come.
Then it all started to go south.
Donald Sterling gave Mike Dunleavy a contract extension. The same Dunleavy who single-handedly destroyed the Clippers' playoff run that year. He then gave Kaman a contract extension, and "Captain Kaman" then went on to play sub-par basketball. Livingston blew everything out in his knee and has yet to recover. This season, Brand ruptured his Achilles in the offseason. Cassell, no longer on a winner, went to one in Boston.
The team full of promise was now an afterthought.
It doesn't get any better. While the Clippers' plummet to traditional depths, the Lakers' rise can only add to their brethren's demise. The Clippers are once again the "red-headed step-child." The other team in L.A. The L.A. embarrassment.
It only gets worse.
Brand and Maggette can both opt out of the final year of their contracts in the offseason.
Livingston is only 22, and still recuperating from multiple knee injuries — injuries so brutal, there is no timetable on his return and some doubt his recovery at all because of the seriousness of the injuries.
If everything goes wrong, which is a big possibility being it is the Clippers, Los Angeles could lose Brand, Maggette, and Livingston — three cornerstones of the Clippers' magical '05-'06 season.
It's hard to imagine how things could have gone so wrong in such little time.
Two years ago, the team split L.A. right down the middle. Everybody had an opinion and basketball in Los Angeles was bigger than any other sport anywhere else. When Sam Cassell was re-signed, Clipper nation rejoiced, and Lakers fans wallowed that they could become the other team.
For the first time ever, the Clippers were playing basketball longer than the Lakers. For the first time, you couldn't hear Clipper Darrell over the screaming, boisterous fans.
There is no way to describe the emotion and atmosphere as the Clippers took the court in the playoffs that year against Denver. There was no way L.A.'s other team could lose that opening series, and if it weren't for some egregious coaching against Phoenix in the second round, who knows where that magical season would have ended up.
Now, it's just a forgotten memory, and for some, a fable. Too ridiculous to imagine.
This is where the Clippers belong, fighting for lottery status. This is what the Clippers do, upper-management squabbling. This is what Clipper Nation has come to expect.
An optimist will mention the Clippers' cap space and free agents Antawn Jamison, Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, and Shawn Marion available. Davis and Arenas are Los Angeles natives and would energize a slowly dying franchise.
This is the Clippers, however, and if history repeats itself, it might be another 30 years before the Red and Blue will be able to rival the Purple and Gold. Until then, those in the know will speak of a time when the Clippers were better than the Lakers, had more potential than the Lakers, and made the Lakers the other team.
Of course, like most stories passed down, many will view this as just another tale, and only two years removed from their playoff run, that might have been just what it was, a myth of how a lowly team can rise to the top.
I mean, it is the Clippers.
Leave a Comment