Elton Brand is off to the city of Brotherly Love while the Clippers try to pick up the pieces… Again!

SCOTT JACOBS 

Remember when I wrote a few weeks ago that, “No one wants to be a Clipper. Not really good players.” Well, yesterday confirmed it.  Welcome back to the show LA.  The Nightmare before, after, and during every basketball season you’ve played for practically every year of your sad existence.  The sad sack franchise that shares the same building as the Lakers (Staples Center for them, Staple your hope to the ground for the Clips), is once again on the wrong end of the NBA’s free agency flurry.

Elton Brand, the heart, the soul, well, I might as well just put it out there, “the one player who for seven years enjoyed being a Clipper,” finally smelled the coffee, and didn’t let the moldy old door, with the bullet shots in it, hit him on his way out.

The term, off to greener pastures gets thrown around a lot in sports, but for this time I can’t blame Elton.  Nope.  I feel a little sorry for the sinking ship that is the Clippers.  They whisked away Baron Davis from their Bay Area nemisis and appeared to be in great shape.  Brand had opted out of his contract with the intentions to sign a longer one, and he wanted to be part of the Clippers consistent push to be post-season factors.

Well, like they say in Forest Gump, “s@$& happens.”  Actually, Clippers happens.  Over and over and over again.  Like a really bad horror movie, you have to laugh from crying.

Its the gift that keeps on haunting.  Believe it or not there are die hard Clips fans out there, though it’s hard to be sure why.  Maybe it’s like rooting for the Zune over the iPod.  Ya know, try to do something different instead of being like everyone else. The iPod has 90% of their market covered, while the Zune is fighting for the leftover ten.  The Lakers have history, championships, hall of famers, legendary teams, great rivalries, and the best player in the game.

The Clippers have… um, well I”m not sure where I was going with that. LA has a second rate tag and a history of belly aching basketball, enough to make any sympathetic sports enthusiast cringe.

When they locked up Davis, the quick, potent three point shooting maniac who’s as tough as nails, it looked like things were looking up.  And then the sky fell down on their head.

The Sixers cleared some cap space, offered virtually the same contract the Clippers were, and down went the Clips playoff hopes, up went the Sixers expectations.

Donald Sterling, arguably the stingiest owner in sports, right up there with tight-wad Bill Bidwell of the Arizona Cardinals, was willing to spend the cash to bring back the face of the trainwreck.  Brand was a 20-10 guy for LA.  That doesn’t come around every day. He gave them respectability, he gave them that “guy” who wasn’t miserable playing for the team that many call purgatory.

He was the model citizen, the easy going star who you wanted to like.

When the Heat extended Brand a huge $80+ million contract as a restricted free agent in the summer of 2003, he told people he wouldn’t be that upset if the Clippers matched it.  They did.  And Brand instantly became one of the most likable guys in the league, because let’s face it, all the money in the world doesn’t buy a happy Clipper.

But when Davis signed it seemed to change the equation.  For a couple weeks sports fans and bloggers alike were going stir crazy about the Clippers being relevant.  Well, just like a decent wardrobe malfunction, LA had the spot-light for a little while.  And when the dust cleared it looked like they would have a quality team for years to come.

Ironically Corey Maggette bolted for the Warriors as news was breaking about Brand heading east.  LA’s two best players from that legendary 2006 playoff team (afterall, they’ve only had four trips to the playoffs in their franchise history) are gone.  Leaving behind a trail of broken hope, faded dreams, and ever so cruel thought of “what if.”

A pairing of Davis and Brand, along with a healthy Chris Kaman, Al Thornton, and Eric Gordon was apparently too much to ask for.

Some things are just too good to be true.  For the Clippers that’s almost always the case.

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