Tick. Tick. Tick.
That is the sound of the Los Angeles Clippers who, once again, appear to be on the verge of implosion. The coach and the owner aren't talking. The owner says the coach picks the players, then rejects a trade. One player (Sam Cassell) is leaving. Two others (Corey Maggette and Elton Brand) have a choice to leave.
It was a pretty remarkable scene last Monday night in the press room of Staples Center. After the Celtics had clobbered an undermanned, overmatched, and generally listless Clipper bunch, team owner Donald Sterling was standing alone, talking on his cellphone. When he hung up, I approached him along with another reporter, Art Thompson of the Orange County Register.
What transpired over the next 10 minutes or so qualifies as, well, Clipperesque. Sterling was congenial, conversational, and, as far as the two of us could tell, utterly clueless as to what was going on with Cassell. Sterling reminded us he was a lawyer. Yet he claimed to know nothing about a buyout (I had been told after the game that it was all but completed) nor, he added, did he know how a buyout worked.
A few years ago, the Globe ran excerpts of a deposition that Sterling gave in a lawsuit filed by Bill Fitch, and Sterling's responses drew guffaws everywhere. He said he had no input in basketball matters. He said he didn't know his players. This conversation last Monday tended to ratify that, except, of course, that Thompson and I both knew that Sterling had nixed a deal for Mike Miller at the trade deadline because it would have involved giving up LA's No. 1 pick. Sterling doesn't so much care about the pick as he does about the monetary value assigned to that pick - around 10 to 15 percent of what Miller makes.
So, OK, maybe the owner Sterling didn't know Cassell was on the verge of a buyout (although it was all over the papers). And maybe the lawyer Sterling didn't understand the whys and wherefores of a buyout. Hard to believe, but, OK.
Then, when the conversation turned to the Clippers' terrible performance, Sterling went off on coach Mike Dunleavy. It was pretty similar to what he said a few weeks back, blaming Dunleavy for the selection of players and saying that Dunleavy, not general manager Elgin Baylor, had the final say on every player on the roster. Every single one. Why, Sterling wondered, if the players were picked by the coach, did they not play for the coach?
When Thompson reminded Sterling that the better days had been only two years ago, Sterling said yes, he knew, then remarked quickly that it was those better days that led to the $20 million-plus contract extension he bestowed on Dunleavy. Another sigh.
It is not stop-the-presses stuff that Sterling can be difficult, especially when it comes to deals. As his former general manager Carl Scheer once said, "Dealing with Sterling was impossible. If he took the elevator down, he'd ask the operator what he thought and by the time he had reached the lobby, he had changed his mind. It was utter frustration."
That's what happened with the Cassell buyout. All sides had agreed to the deal Monday night. But if Sterling was telling the truth and really didn't know anything about it (hard to believe), then that might explain why everything came to a halt Tuesday. Outside observers expected the Cassell thing to go down to the final minute yesterday, but, amazingly, it was done on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the Dunleavy-Sterling dynamic is not good. Several sources said the two have not spoken in weeks. On paper, when healthy, the Clippers can field a decent starting five (Brand, Maggette, Chris Kaman, Cuttino Mobley, and Shaun Livingston) and a decent bench (Tim Thomas, Brevin Knight, Al Thornton). But they're not healthy, and there's no indication who will be back next year. And the Lakers are indisputably back on top in LA, something that also irks Sterling.
Dunleavy, however, seems secure. Sterling won't fire him with all that money on the table. But Dunleavy didn't fall off the turnip truck, either. He knew the ways of The Donald when he signed on. Looking back, it's pretty stunning that it took so long for all this to surface. Dunleavy is finishing his fifth year as coach. In Clipper lore, that makes him Cal Ripken.
They greased the skids
Sam Cassell, Damon Stoudamire, Theo Ratliff, Gordan Giricek, and all the others who have secured buyouts and moved on to greener pastures owe a debt of gratitude to Jan Volk, the former general manager of the Celtics, and player agent Steve Kauffman.In the summer of 1995, they worked out what is believed to be the first buyout of a contract so that a player could go elsewhere.
The player in this instance was Dominique Wilkins, who had had a less-than-enjoyable first year with the Celtics. Then, on July 1, 1995, the NBA locked out the players, so it wasn't clear when the 1995-96 season would start.
Kauffman by then had arranged for a deal for Wilkins with a team in Greece (Panathinaikos), but Wilkins first had to get out of his Celtic deal, which had two years to run.
"At the time, you couldn't alter a player's contract," Volk recalled.
So the two sides went to the league and the union and worked out the language that allowed the contract to be settled and the player to be put on waivers for the purposes of his release.
"All I remember is that we had a very short window to do it," Kauffman said. "And I remember Jan coming in with a laptop and this big, long tube. Well, it turned out the tube was a printer. This was almost 13 years ago. Technologically, I was blown away."
Wilkins ended up playing only 14 games for Panathinaikos, then returned to play two more seasons in the NBA, one for San Antonio and one brief stint (27 games) with Orlando. He also played another year in Europe in Bologna. But it was that first foray to Greece for which he's still remembered, at least among the lawyers.
"The language that was used in the buyout was incorporated into the next collective bargaining agreement," Volk said.
Should we start calling it the "Volk-Kauffman Clause"?
Rockets may veer off course without Yao
Here's a line from this week's Sports Illustrated on Yao Ming: "The mad-rebounding center's on target to play his first full season in three years."He was when the article went to print. He isn't anymore.
Talk about bad luck. The Rockets were starting to make a move in the West, although out there, a 12-game winning streak moved them from 10th to sixth. Then came the devastating news that, for the third straight season, Yao was going to miss considerable time - in this case, the rest of the season - with a stress fracture.
Houston is not going to forfeit its remaining games, but clearly, the Rockets' hopes of making it out of the first round and doing some damage might well have been dashed.
True, Houston has played without Yao before and lived to tell about it. The Rockets are 30-34 in the 64 games Yao has missed in his career, but 22-15 the last two seasons.
Now the pressure again falls on Tracy McGrady, who has trouble with such things and who has injury issues of his own. (Houston is 1-12 in the 13 games McGrady and Yao have missed together.) It appears Dikembe Mutombo will be exhumed for the final third of the season.
In last Tuesday's 25-point rout of equally ravaged Washington, Mutombo went 23 minutes, collected 4 points (making 2 field goals), and blocked 4 shots. Prior to that night, Mutombo had had 4 blocks the entire season - and only 1 field goal and 7 total points in 113 minutes.
One area to watch is the Rockets' free throw shooting. When Yao went down, Houston already was 26th in free throw accuracy and 26th in free throw attempts per game. Yao not only was the team's best free throw shooter (85 percent), he also accounted for around 30 percent of the team's attempts.
Etc.
Second-chance points?Sam Cassell might well have started his career in Boston rather than, perhaps, concluding it in Boston. But by the time the 1993 draft rolled around, the Celtics felt they didn't need the Florida State guard. Anyone who recalls the Celtics from the early 1990s knows how much they wanted a point guard. Dee Brown didn't do it. Brian Shaw didn't do it. So they traded for Sherman Douglas in January 2002, and he was firmly in charge at the position when the draft approached. Cassell was still on the board when the Celtics made their pick at No. 19. The choice? Acie Earl. The Rockets swooped up Cassell five picks later, and he is one of three players from that 1993 first round still in the NBA. The others are the No. 1 pick, Chris Webber (taken by Orlando) and Lindsey Hunter, taken No. 10 by the Pistons.
Performance isn't maximized
Here's an interesting twist on the Hawks' Mike Bibby trade and the potential ramifications. Atlanta is committed to around $51.5 million for salaries for next season, but that is before deciding what to do with restricted free agents Josh Smith and Josh Childress. Suppose Atlanta commits $15 million to the two of them in extensions. That would take the Hawks close to the luxury tax threshold, still a few players short of the minimum. Of course, a number of things can be done between now and then, but if you have two max or close-to-max players, you'd better do a lot better than Atlanta is doing. And this is one team that can't afford to be a luxury tax payer.
Falling star?
Could Byron Scott be on the verge of making history? Probably not, but you can never say never in the wild, wild West. Scott, coach of the Hornets, could become the first person to coach an NBA All-Star team and have his team miss the playoffs in that season. It's not all that far a drop, but a lot of things - bad things - would have to happen. Already the Hornets (and a lot of others in the West) caught a break when the Rockets lost Yao Ming for the season. As best as can be figured, the NBA started naming its All-Star coaches based on midseason records in the early 1980s. Since then, a number of those coaches were first-round casualties in the playoffs, including last year's Eastern Conference coach, Eddie Jordan of the Wizards.
Mavs were down, Kidd was out
There's a williwaw brewing in Dallas. I watched the end of the Mavericks-Spurs game Thursday night at a restaurant with the sound off. I saw Jason Kidd standing there. I suspected he had fouled out. What other reason could Dallas coach Avery Johnson have for not putting Kidd into the game with 30-odd seconds left and the Mavs down by 2 points? Well, it turns out Kidd was not in there because the coach kept him on the bench. Afterward, Johnson offered up some lame excuse about having Dirk Nowitzki surrounded by shooters. But this is the same coach who saluted the acquisition of Kidd by noting that he knows how to finish games. And the guy who ended up with the ball, Jason Terry, somehow missed two open Mavs. Johnson is well-known as a control freak, but when you have Kidd, you have to use him. End of story. Even Charles Barkley seemed to get that. "There's no sense in making a Jason Kidd trade if you aren't going to use him in crunch time," Barkley said on TNT after the game.
A legal zone defense
A followup on the case the Celtics brought against the woman who had threatened to shoot Paul Pierce. The team was back in court last week and succeeded in having the temporary restraining order turned into a permanent injunction, preventing the woman from getting within 300 feet of Pierce. She also can't enter the Celtics' offices or attend a Celtics game at TD Banknorth Garden. There is no further legal action planned, as the woman in question agreed to the injunction. The alternative would have been a trial.
Road worriers
While the Jazz continue to lead the Northwest Division, here's a note to keep in mind as the playoffs approach: Teams that advance are generally teams that win on the road. And for some reason, that has not been the story for the Jazz. They went into last night's game in Memphis with a 12-19 record on the road, having lost three straight. Two of those three losses were to Western Conference lottery teams, the Clippers and Timberwolves. Of the top eight teams in the West, both Utah and Dallas have losing records on the road, as does No. 9 Denver. The big change is Dallas, which was 26-15 on the road the year it went to the NBA Finals and 31-10 last season. Entering today's biggie against the Lakers in Los Angeles, the Mavs are 14-17 on the road.
Peter May can be reached at pmay@globe.com; material from personal interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.
