Clippers Enduring Another Sterling Effort All Around

Wasting away again in Donald Sterling-ville. . . .

It’s another one of those seasons in Clipperdom, only more so, because the kids are up to something truly historic.

Unless they stage a major upset, they’ll tie Miami’s NBA record for worst start (0-17) in Wednesday’s loss to, er, game against the Lakers.

Then they play host to the Sacramento Kings, who are beatable but still better than they are, and the Portland Trail Blazers, who are prone to letdowns but would need a big one . . . before a trip to Seattle, New York, Boston, Toronto and Minnesota, all of which will be favored.

In other words, unless there’s at least a mild surprise, the Clippers will be 0-24, giving them the new single-season record for losing streaks too.

Ironically, this isn’t one of those no-hope Clipper teams but one loaded with young players, like Maurice Taylor and Michael Olowokandi, that a lot of teams would like to get their hands on (and may).

This was all about being ready. Let’s just say the pick-up-a-coach-at-the-last-moment experiment doesn’t seem to have worked too well.

Six teams hired new coaches over the summer but Sterling waited until he knew there would be a season. People wondered why the Clippers announced Chris Ford’s hiring the day Michael Jordan retired, guaranteeing minimal coverage. They probably did it to guarantee fewer questions about waiting so long.

Then some players arrived out of shape, notably Rodney Rogers, who always does, and Lorenzen Wright, who never does. Wright attended Pete Newell’s big man’s camp, but showed up with an agent demanding a $60-million deal or a trade.

Olowokandi missed the exhibition season. So did Sherman Douglas--he was hoping to go to Washington if Rod Strickland left--and showed up looking like a little sumo wrestler.

Douglas is the kind of competitor they need but between getting in shape and recovering from the inevitable injury, a groin pull, may need a little more time to assert himself.

In the recent loss at Anaheim to the Lakers, Ford yelled to Douglas on the bench, “You ready, Sherm?”

Replied Douglas, “One more minute.”

You can ask Bill Fitch, the only coach Sterling ever rehired, who had 0-16 and 2-14 starts in four seasons, when things on a demoralized team start badly, it’s hell to turn them around.

Ford, who did his best work with Larry Bird and the Celtics’ over-the-hill gang in the early ‘90s, is trying to nurse his youngsters through this but is running out of bandages.

“It’s a fine line I’m trying to walk,” Ford says. “I don’t want to be so demanding or get on their rear ends, so there’s no hope for their confidence. I’m trying to pat ‘em on the back as well as be a little firm.”

Nor can his confidence be what it was.

“My wife asks me that every day,” Ford says. “It’s tough on her. Me, I knew what it was coming in.”

Danny Manning, a Clipper in a (slightly) better time, suggested recently that sometimes Sterling seems to try harder than at other times, and it’s true.

Next season, when the Clippers move into the Staples Center, there will be a public-relations offensive, perhaps even changes. They’ll be $10 million to $15 million under the cap and may pursue a big-time free agent. Persuading one to descend to this circle of hell, of course, will be another matter.

This is only the season before they go to Staples, the last in their forlorn Sports Arena, and obviously rates low in terms of organizational effort.

In the best of times, Sterling doesn’t try hard enough. Look around, this ain’t them.

NO WAY TO TREAT A LAKER FAN

Celtics are supposed to be bare-knuckle, blue-collar, Bird-worshipers from hard-scrabble mill towns, not kids who grew up next to the Forum, idolizing Magic Johnson.

Of course, Paul Pierce has proven to be special and the Celtics are desperate, so nobody’s complaining.

Not that Pierce has been shy about reminding them who won five titles in the ‘80s and who won three. His first time on the parquet floor, which was brought over to the FleetCenter, he reenacted Johnson’s “baby sky hook” that won the pivotal Game 4 in the ’87 finals.

Then he started imitating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shots, informing General Manager Chris Wallace, “You know, Kareem was giving those all game.”

The Celtics say they still aren’t giving him up.

PENNY FOR HIS THOUGHTS

If you thought good times could cheer up Penny Hardaway, he just started in again on Coach Chuck Daly (who doesn’t like him, he says) and the front office (which didn’t back him when he was out last season and people said awful things about him), tossing in a blast at the referees who worked the loss to Miami in which the Magic blew a 17-point lead.

“[Daly] doesn’t know me to this day as a person and a player,” Hardaway told the Boston Globe. “[Being out] just changed some relationships with the general manager and the president. Once you’ve been put on an island by yourself and no one comes to your rescue--the head coach is supposed to be a guy that comes through for you.”

Nevertheless, Hardaway, who can opt out this summer, continues to insist he wants to stay--not for himself but because he “made commitments to guys like Bo Outlaw, Ike Austin, Nick Anderson, guys that just re-signed contracts. So I can’t be selfish, think about myself. I brought these guys here. I just can’t leave them.”

Wait until he finds out what a brittle $8-million player, averaging 15 points and shooting 37%--11% on threes--commands on the market, then he really won’t be able to leave them.

FACES AND FIGURES

Boston Coach Rick Pitino, once John Calipari’s sponsor, asked about his friend’s tenuous hold on his job as New Jersey’s coach: “He’s not a good friend of mine. Everybody says that. What I mean is that I’m friends with him but I speak to John once or twice a year for about 10 or 15 minutes. He’s not someone that I socialize with. He’s much closer, for instance, to Larry Brown and to Bob Hill. Now, I recommended John for the UMass job. I’ve got tremendous respect for his coaching ability. But people think we’re friends. I don’t know if it’s an ethnic thing, where they think all Italians stick together or something.” What Pitino really means is: “You mean that little user is in trouble? Great!”

With the Nets on a six-game losing streak, Calipari heard a sermon on blind faith and said he asked the priest, “Did you know I was coming?” The Nets then won at Boston, when Keith Van Horn’s last-second game winner hit the front rim, bounced up and went in. Unfortunately, they lost their next two.

You wouldn’t call the Knicks “intimidating” anymore, not when opponents are saying they miss Charles Oakley so badly, they sometimes quit. “That’s the word out on them,” Cleveland’s Shawn Kemp said. “If you can get on them early, sometimes they may give up.” Said Larry Johnson, whom Coach Jeff Van Gundy calls his emotional leader: “Oak didn’t show a lot of emotion but when you saw him play like that, you just feed off the hard work he came with every night. Taking charges, grabbing rebounds, diving on the floor. You think, ‘Hey, this man is playing hard. We have to play with him.’ We have to get us an Oak, so to speak. Someone has to step up.” . . . Johnson said that after scoring three points with two rebounds in a loss at Boston, apparently to point out how badly he needs an Oak, rather than volunteering for the role.

Former Sun Coach Cotton Fitzsimmons on Kurt Rambis: “When he came to the Suns from Charlotte [in 1990], Kurt’s work ethic was an immediate shot in the arm for our club and that’s the same blue-collar style he will instill as a coach.” And on Rambis’ chances with Dennis Rodman: “He and Rodman ought to be on the same page. Talk about free spirits, I don’t know which one is more free.”