These are the Clippers we all know and love

Look at it this way: the Clippers now have a 0.5% chance of winning the NBA draft lottery and landing Greg Oden or Kevin Durant, which is better than the 0.0% chance they had of beating the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs.

Get on board, folks: Secaucus, N.J., is the new capital of Clipper Nation.

Even if the Clippers didn’t lose to the Hornets in the final game of the season, Golden State edged them out for the final playoff spot by beating the Portland Trail Blazers Wednesday night.

Back to the lottery. Back to being ... the Clippers.

Actually this squad does hold a special distinction. Most Disappointing Team in Franchise History. Maybe they can print that up and hang it as their first banner in Staples Center.

They brought back the core of their most successful team and locked up everybody to nice contracts as an immunization from the individualitis that swept through the team when everyone was playing for new deals four years ago. All they have to show for it is an early vacation.

I asked a member of the NBA community the biggest difference he noticed between these Clippers and last season’s Clippers.

“They weren’t hungry,” he said.

It’s all on them, their leadership, their effort.

That’s why I couldn’t work up any empathy for the Clippers. I’m too down on them to even be outraged about the Dallas Mavericks toying with their fate by leaving their best players in street clothes Tuesday night and handing a game to the Warriors.

Coach Mike Dunleavy said he was told by someone close to the Dallas organization that the Mavericks lost because they would rather face the Warriors than the Clippers.

The Clippers shouldn’t flatter themselves. I think Dallas wanted to see the Warriors move to the No. 7 spot so the Mavericks wouldn’t have to face the only Western Conference team they did not beat this season. For a while, it even looked like they’d get their wish and see the Lakers fall to No. 8 when Sacramento led at halftime Wednesday night, but the Lakers prevailed.

David Stern, who once fined the Lakers for leaving Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson home for a meaningless end-of-the-season game at Portland, is going to have to figure out what to do about teams that don’t try to win games with playoff implications. Maybe he can even address it in the same memo that deals with teams tanking to improve their lottery odds.

The Clippers were caught in the worst possible place: with the playoff destiny out of their hands and not enough potential losses left to greatly increase their number of ping-pong balls in the hopper.

The solutions aren’t easy. Not when there’s no room under the salary cap and their most tradable asset -- Corey Maggette -- happened to be their most valuable player during their little second-half surge.

When Donald Sterling walked off the court a fan yelled out, “Fire Dunleavy. Dunleavy must go.”

With little roster flexibility, that would be a start. I’d give him until the All-Star break to get back to that form.

Dunleavy, who has a hand in personnel decisions, didn’t sound like a big roster shake-up is coming.

“I think our nucleus is one that can play at a high level and our nucleus has room to grow,” Dunleavy said. “That’s our intention is to have a great off-season, forgetting about draft, free agency trades, or things like that -- just growing our guys and getting our guys better.”

There isn’t much left to say about this season, which probably explains why only one question was asked of Dunleavy after the game.

The reasons have been rehashed often enough. Elton Brand’s early fatigue. Chris Kaman’s attempt to do everything he could to show he wasn’t worthy of that $55 million extension. Dunleavy’s misguided battle with Corey Maggette, when it turned out that Maggette was more of a solution than a problem. Tim Thomas reminding us why the Chicago Bulls dumped him and the Phoenix Suns didn’t extend themselves to bring him back. Sam Cassell showing his age.

Dunleavy said the problems started with the numerous injuries in training camp and never got better.

“It seemed like things kind of snowballed for us,” he said. “Every time we started going in a new direction, something else would come up for us.”

The one excuse I won’t give them is the most obvious one: Shaun Livingston’s injury. Ask the Heat and Rockets if anyone felt sorry for them when they lost Shaquille O’Neal Dwyane Wade, Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady for significant stretches.

The crazy thing about the Clippers is they actually did better after Livingston’s injury. They were two games under .500 when Livingston went down and were .500 afterward. Maybe a sense of accomplishment set in after winning 47 games and reaching Game 7 of the second round in last season’s playoffs. For this franchise it was a milestone. For most other teams it’s a time to put the emotional stove on simmer and wonder what went wrong.

Missing the playoffs is definitely time to reassess. That’s something the Clippers know all too well.

*

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Adande, go to latimes.com/adande.