Baylor's departure won't change Clippers
Posted: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 7:14 PM
Usually, when a long-time sports executive is ousted or resigns (wink, wink), there are plenty of people ready to defend the poor fellow. This will not be the case with Elgin Baylor.
For 22 years, Baylor was the vice president of basketball operations and general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers. And only Matt Millen, the recently canned GM of the Detroit Lions, has been worse at that job.
Millen was fired two weeks ago after seven years of failure. Baylor resigned Tuesday. Since 1986, Clippers owner Sterling was perfectly happy with Baylor’s efforts, such as they were. Like a proud parent who looks at a toddler’s smear of a finger-painting and pronounces the kid the next Picasso, Sterling looked at everything Baylor did as a museum-quality work of art.
Now, Sterling shrugs at his executive's resignation and essentially says, “We greatly appreciate Elgin’s efforts during his time with the Clippers, and we wish him the very best.”
And this is the difference between Baylor and Millen. Millen was supposed to win; Baylor was supposed to turn a profit. The way to do that was by not spending money on such frivolous luxuries as decent players.
So as long as Sterling was happy with whatever his bottom line was, he was happy with the teams Baylor put together, no matter how miserable they were. In 22 years, the Clippers managed to win at least half of their games just three times. The last time they pulled that off was in 2005-2006, when the team went 47-35 and finished second in their division. The Clippers even won one playoff series for the first time since 1976, when they were the Buffalo Braves.
For that achievement, which would be considered modest by any competent franchise, Baylor was named the NBA’s executive of the year.
By last season, the Clippers were back down to their comfort level – 23-59. At season’s end, they lost their star player, Elton Brand, to Philadelphia in a free-agent signing. Normally, that would be on Baylor’s head and be grounds for firing. But it was apparently coach Mike Dunleavy who dropped the ball on keeping Brand. And Sterling just made Dunleavy the new GM.
In short, Clippers fans, don’t expect Baylor’s exit to change anything.
Normally, I’d feel sorry for fans of a team that has made a virtue of bad management. But I can’t summon up a dram of sympathy for anyone who remains a fan of the Clippers.
You’re like somebody who builds a house in a flood plain or on the beach in a hurricane zone. You know that you’re going to get washed away. It’s a certainty. And yet you build there and then, when the inevitable natural disaster strikes, you look around for somebody else to pay for you to rebuild in the exact same place – even if your lot is now under water.
That’s a Clippers fan, getting washed away every single year and not having the brains to move someplace dry. You want to cheer for a franchise owned by a man who puts “winning” somewhere near the bottom of his to-do list, and it’s your own darned fault: you must love being miserable.
For Clippers fans, the sin is compounded. You’re in L.A. for Pete’s sake. You’ve got the Lakers right there, a team that actually cares about winning. Phoenix isn’t that far away. Cheer for the Suns. Or move upstate and cheer for Golden State or the Kings. Switch to the college game and get involved in UCLA.
Do anything that doesn’t involve buying tickets to Clippers games. As long as you buy the tickets, Sterling has a license to keep losing. The only way to fix this mess isn’t t get rid of Baylor, but to get rid of the owners. And he won’t leave unless you make it unprofitable for him to stay.
Just stop going to the games. It’s that simple. Stop watching them. Stop buying their jerseys. Stop the madness, because madness like this never stops itself. You may have gotten rid of Baylor, but you didn’t get rid of the problem.
