Clip and Save This Deal of Century for Next One

The dumbest moment in Clipper history, a pop quiz:

(Employees of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball organization, and their families, not eligible.)

a) Owner Donald Sterling suggests his team lose as many games down the stretch as possible in order to clinch the No. 1 draft pick (“Maybe I have to lose the battle to win the war”) and is fined $10,000 as Clippers finish the 1981-82 season 17-65.

b) Center Benoit Benjamin shows up for an exhibition game with one pair of sneakers, both of them left shoes.

c) Before the 1987-88 season, Clippers buy newspaper ads predicting they will win the NBA championship. Clippers finish 1987-88 season 17-65.

d) Clippers spend their No. 1 selection of the 1989 draft on Duke forward Danny Ferry, who greets the news by fleeing the country and playing in Italy.

e) Clippers trade their best player, Danny Manning, for aging all-star Dominique Wilkins in February, 1994. Wilkins greets the news by playing out his option in June, 1994, then signs with Boston, then flees the country and plays in Greece.

f) Clippers trade future all-star Antonio McDyess, moments after drafting him, for two part-time players and a rent-a-center named Brian Williams, who is set to flee any day now.

g) Sterling turns down $95 million from Anaheim to keep his team at the L.A. Sports Arena.

Before last Thursday--June 6, 1996 is the date that will boggle Clipperologists of the 21st century--this multiple choice was a tough call.

Today, it’s a no-brainer.

Looking back, the exhausting, exasperating Anaheim-Clippers negotiations ended the only way they really could end.

The Clippers left the money and ran.

Is anybody really surprised?

Did anyone truly believe Sterling wouldn’t take a win-win proposal and lose it on the way back to the limo? That he wouldn’t inevitably pull the plug on this sweetheart deal by tripping over the cord?

It was a gimme, a concession basket, a part-the-key-and-get-out-of-the-way freebie--and the Clippers blew the layup.

Of course they did.

Anything else and they wouldn’t be the Clippers.

What if Sterling had said OK, I give, I’ll take the $95 million, stop twisting my elbow painfully behind my back? What if Sterling hadn’t ordered his bouncer to punt Ed McMahon off the front porch and instead signed on the dotted line?

Such behavior would have been so out of line, David Stern would have had to demand urine tests for the whole front office, and that kind of puts a damper on a champagne celebration.

Ninety-five million dollars for the Clippers?

Over the 12 years of the lease, that would have worked out to more than $7.9 million a season.

And with the Clippers averaging 55 losses a season since 1980, that would have worked out to $143,939 a defeat.

Peanuts.

Now you see why Sterling turned it down.

Predictably, Anaheim city officials claimed to be crushed by the Clippers pullout. Of course, they were speaking to newspaper people--what else were they going to say? They talked about the debt payment--$1.5 million a year to the Ogden Corp., beginning in 1997--the city would have avoided if it had landed the Clippers. They noted that while the Clippers might not be the Orlando Magic, for purposes of fulfilling the Pond construction contract with Ogden, the city could have done worse.

Actually, that is patently untrue.

There is no possible way the city could have done worse than the Clippers.

The Clippers are the new Cleveland Indians, now that the Indians have become the new New York Yankees. The Clippers are the 1990s dictionary illustration for the term inept, eclipsing the Ottawa Senators (who have been rotten for only five seasons, not 20) and the ’62 Mets (outdated reference, lost on younger viewers.)

In the here and now, the Clippers mean As Bad As It Can Get.

In 1989, the National Sports Review yearbook named the Clippers “Ugliest Team of The Decade.” According to the magazine’s “Bozo Index,” the Clippers rated a perfect 10, enabling them to edge the Seattle Mariners (9), the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (8) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (5). What have they done lately? Since 1993, the Clippers have finished 27-55, 17-65 (0-16 to start the season) and 29-53.

Today, they are a part of the national parlance.

A boneheaded maneuver, in any sport, in any course of endeavor, is now described as Clipperesque.

After the Kings traded Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri to complete the gutting of a once respectable franchise, the word on the street was that General Manager Sam McMaster had turned the Kings into “the Clippers on ice.”

Frankly, the city of Anaheim can live without that kind of publicity.

Anaheim is already renowned as the town that lost the Rams, that couldn’t buy a pennant, that lost the race to the Stanley Cup playoffs to the Florida Panthers. Anaheim has a sporting reputation that couldn’t afford to take another hit. Bring in the Clippers and here come the national magazines with their “Loserville, USA” cover stories.

Anaheim can do without that.

If that means doing without the Clippers, well, consider it Anaheim’s gain and Sterling’s loss.

At a rate of 55 per season.