Last Saturday night, the Clippers beat the Lakers in the first regular season meeting of these Los Angeles neighbors since the Clippers hit the talent buffet with both hands this offseason, and the basketball world is giddy. It's as if Chris Paul, Caron Butler, and Chauncey Billups are somehow going to reverse 28 years of apathy toward the Lakers' lowly step-siblings. Lob City, we now call them. Here on Sports Central, our own Bill Hazell even prophesied of a legitimate basketball rivalry in L.A.
Well, Rome wasn't built in a day, and Los Angeles isn't going to build basketball equilibrium in one season. After all, people love winners and they love glitter. The Lakers are both. Until now, the Clippers were neither.
Through the previous 27 seasons sharing the same address, the Clippers have won 35% of their games; the Lakers, 66%. As Hazell points out, there have only been four seasons in which the Clippers won more games than the Lakers. And while they've made four postseason appearances, Showtime has eight rings. Disparity in success translates into disparity in attendance as well. The Lakers play in front of sell-out crowds of 19,000 every night, while the Clippers average 2,000 less in the same arena. Ice Cube, Flea, Jay-Z, Denzel Washington, and Jack Nicholson are all Staples Center regulars on Laker nights, while the Clippers counter with Malcolm in the Middle. Penny Marshall splits her loyalties.
Clippers fans can look to this new year for balance. They've got forward Blake Griffin, and he is cause for hope. In an electric rookie year, he threw down 214 dunks to go along with 22.5 points and 12 rebounds per game, sending notice to Hollywood that a new superstar is in bloom. Then there's the double-plus from this year's offseason pick-ups: Paul, the NBA's marquee point guard, was acquired after Commissioner David Stern rescinded a three-way deal that would have sent him to the Lakers; Butler is an ex-Laker looking for redemption; and Billups was won in an amnesty auction under the new CBA, blocking his move into unrestricted free agency, where the Lakers were lying in wait. That's addition by both addition and subtraction.
A two-game preseason sweep over the Lakers was one thing, but Saturday's win further validated GM Neil Olshey'e grand design as it transitioned to the hardwood. Paul scored 33 points, Billups 19, and Butler 13, while Griffin pulled down 14 rebounds. Even more, the win put the Clippers in first place in the Pacific Division for three days, percentage points ahead of the Lakers. In fact, after a Martin Luther King Day win against the New Jersey Nets, they amassed seven wins in their first ten games for only the second time since moving to L.A. Another thriller last night against the defending-champion Dallas Mavericks helps the cause, but it's going to be a long road to purge second-class status in a town where image is everything. Especially when Kobe Bryant has the L.A. market cornered on image.
In true theatrical form, the 33-year old Bryant is the archetypical villain launching an improbable attack out of nowhere. A 31-point second half on Saturday notched Bryant his fourth straight 40-point game, and Hollywood was a-buzz. Forget the Lakers loss. Forget the Clippers win. Hell, forget the team concept completely, because Kobe is back in form, shooting aplenty and scoring seemingly at will, and that is what the NBA is all about. It's not the outcome; it's how you get there.
If the Clippers are the NBA's LMFAO, the Lakers are its Rolling Stones: they made their bones in the 1960s and were still kicking it into the new millennium, but now need a blood transfusion each day. Kobe's scoring is their transfusion. He does it often and sometimes in spectacular ways, and Glitter loves it.
Throughout last weekend, my television displayed graphics of old players that have won scoring titles, of consecutive 40-point games, of most 40-point games in a career. On Saturday morning, ESPN convened that panel of Kobe rump swabs it calls NBA Countdown, and the exercise was to fill in the blanks, the blanks being adjectives that describe Bryant. Jon Barry chose something along the order of "unstoppable," while Magic Johnson went with "historic." Bryant even got a Shaq-tastic from TNT's Inside the NBA. It's a campaign that's not going to go away with an occasional 14-point performance against the Mavericks, but until it does there will be no new Kings of L.A.
For the Clippers to usurp that title, they need a whole lot more help from Father Time than they've been getting. With Bryant averaging nearly his age, and 37-year old Derek Fisher hitting game-winning treys on Kobe off-nights, the Lakers have been a tough shake for the Clippers. The shortened 66-game season could be an asset as games pile up and make Showtime's aging bones weary.
The Clippers have to help themselves more, as well. They could start by stringing together a few good drafts for a change. Has anyone seen Shaun Livingston, Yaroslav Korolev, and Al Thornton lately? And more head-to-head beat-downs on the Staples Center floor won't hurt, but off-court victories like Paul and Billups will go further. Enter Dwight Howard. On Monday, the current Magic center and apparent cornerstone of Lakers Future let it be known he now wants to be a Clipper. If Howard is in red, white, and blue next year, can winning and glitter be far behind?
Finally, stars on the bench are great, but stars in the crowd are even better. They are the ultimate arbiters of popularity in Tinseltown. Everyone else will fall in line. We will know L.A. is a two-team town when Clipper Darrell is more recognized than Nicholson, and Penny Marshall stops napping in the video crew room during Clippers games.
That day may soon come. Just not in 2012.
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