Thursday, October 21, 2010

2010 Season Preview: Los Angeles Clippers

It's time for the Love in the Time of LeBron 2010 Season Team Previews. You know how we do. Next up, the beardiest second bananas on the West Coast, the Los Angeles Clippers

Classification
The Idea Is Better Than Reality

Why We Care
We care because they should be great. Baron Davis has all the talent in the world and could absolutely be an elite point guard in this league. Chris Kaman is a legitimate center who, if last year is any indication, is full of surprises. Eric Gordon made a name for himself in the Olympics this year, and the promise of Blake Griffin is nearly incomprehensible. Yet, they remain the Clippers: cursed and likely doomed to best-case mediocrity and worst-case apocalypse. We care because of the flashes of greatness and to watch the undoing from the inside.

Significant Beards
Baron Davis: Lush, full. Lifetime achievement award.
Rasual Butler: Light goatee. A Gentleman’s C.
Randy Foye: Miniscule goatee. Satisfactory.
Ryan Gomes: Half chin-strap. Half a barn-raising and a butter churn.
Eric Gordon: Shadow of a neard. Mild disgust.
DeAndre Jordan: Chinstrap to goatee. 7.3.
Chris Kaman: Full ginger chinstrap to goatee. An improvement, for what that's worth.
Craig Smith: Reasonable goatee. Strong.

Guiding Text
On the Beach

If They Were A Brass Instrument They Would Be...
A trombone

LeBron on the Clippers
The motorcycles revved loudly in the distance. It was hot, but it had always been hot, and there was no sense in guessing why, specifically, this instant, it felt so unbearable. The Los Angles sun had always seemed brighter than anywhere else and it beamed as insistent as ever, baking the ground and turning the asphalt into near-lava. The actual lava from the rift flowed down Rodeo and eventually into the city proper, a slow, fiery worm eating the city. The wildfires glowed day and night, but the unbearable part was the smoke, filling the air and turning the insistent sun a sickly orange at dawn and an angry red in the evening. The motorcycles were getting louder. Baron nodded.

The plaza was empty, the windows all broken, the stores thoroughly looted. After the collapse, people either responded by rioting or fleeing and by this point even most of those who had once rioted had now fled. The mansions of the wealthy stood empty or in ashes and when you walked the streets, the loudest sound was broken glass under your own feet. Most of the time. The roaring engines were nearly upon them and the others all stood ready with their Louisville sluggers and their chains and their switchblades. Someone was growling. LeBron lifted the fireman’s axe onto his shoulders, braced himself and waited for Baron’s signal.

Rosetta Stone
This pretty much explains it.

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