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It’s a fitting end for Clippers

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Gone fishin’?

That would be one crowded Clippers boat if TNT’s Kenny Smith expanded his routine to include lottery-bound teams.

Chris Kaman is a multi-platforming outdoorsman: a hunting and fishing kind of guy. Have bow-and-arrow, will travel.

“I’m probably going to do a little bit of both,” Kaman said. “I’m going to wing it.”

He was talking before the final game of the season, in which Oklahoma City beat the desultory Clippers, 126-85, on Wednesday night at Staples Center. It was their 63rd loss this season. They fell one shy of the few seemingly attainable marks remaining, 20 wins.

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“We started with a 40-point loss to the Lakers, the best team,” Kaman said, “and we ended with a 40-point loss to one of the worst teams.”

The Clippers tied with Washington for the second-worst record in the league, and the tiebreaker for the draft lottery, a high-tech coin flip, will take place Friday in New York at the Board of Governors meeting.

The Clippers’ final day -- in fact, the last few weeks -- had been marked by a last-day-of-school feel, a mixture of regret, and, of late, giddiness that the worst season since 1999-2000 was finally drawing to a close.

“It kind of does feel like that, and I don’t have to go to class,” Al Thornton said.

General Manager and Coach Mike Dunleavy got a head start on the off-season, well, by a little more than a quarter, when he was tossed from the game with 4:56 remaining in the third quarter.

“I can’t imagine a worse way to end a season,” Dunleavy said. “As far as I’m concerned, in 30 years of coaching and playing, this is the worst season that I’ve ever been involved with. I promised the guys tonight in the locker room, ‘It’s not going to be that way next year, no matter what.’ ”

He said he apologized to his staff about getting thrown out.

“That call wasn’t worth getting thrown out,” he said. “It was the frustration of what went on the whole time . . . I didn’t mean to leave them in that lurch. I felt like I should have been there with them to take it down the stretch.”

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Now that it’s over, the players are scattering. Kaman is driving home to Michigan today. Rookie Eric Gordon will eventually go to the Bahamas with his parents to visit his mother’s family.

Thornton wants to travel to the Bahamas, but not when Gordon is there. “I’m tired of seeing that dude,” he said, joking.

Kaman could end up in Poland in September, playing for the German national team in a European tournament. His participation still seems to hinge on Dirk Nowitzki’s status.

Closer to home, Baron Davis, Marcus Camby and Zach Randolph have been talking about meeting in Las Vegas this summer and playing in some pickup games.

The heavy lifting can’t be done just in training camp, Dunleavy said.

“Our guys have to come back into shape, not come to camp and think you’ll get in shape,” he said, adding that players will be suspended if they arrive out of shape.

That was Davis’ problem in September and it carried over into the season. Of late, he’s been saying all the right things about his relationship with Dunleavy and plans for next season.

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“I think our relationship over this whole season has really grown,” Davis said. “When you see us out there now, it’s more so that we trust each other. I know what he wants out there. If not, he’ll dictate that to me. It’s a growing trust.

“I love coach’s attitude. His cockiness, I think that’s really going to rub off on the team for next year, and it’s something I’m going to feed off of as well.”

He called Dunleavy the captain of the ship. What does that make his job title?

“If he’s the captain, then I guess I’m the manager. I’m the crew manager,” Davis said.

Times staff writer Mark Medina contributed to this report.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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