Boone: L.A. Needs to Stay With Blueprint

For the last 10 years, Ron Boone has been a broadcaster for the Utah Jazz, and he has watched the team develop into one of the league’s best and most consistent franchises. But Boone can remember when times weren’t so good, like when he played for Utah at the end of his career from 1979 to 1981.

Back then, the Jazz were somewhat like the Clippers. Boone, however, says that Utah developed a plan and stuck with it.

“I’ve been watching [the Clippers] the last 10 years and you have a team that is in the lottery every year but for some reason doesn’t get better,” said Boone, who played 1,041 consecutive games in the American Basketball Assn. and NBA. “Having so many coaching changes has made it difficult.

“From management to free agency, because players don’t want to stay [with the Clippers]. There are so many different factors why the Clippers [keep losing].”

Using Utah as an example with Karl Malone and John Stockton, Boone says that keeping two key players and the same system is the best way to turn a franchise around.

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Veteran forward Rodney Rogers did not dress against Utah because of an injury he suffered to his right knee Friday in the Clippers’ loss at Seattle. . . . Charles Smith also injured a knee against the SuperSonics but was in uniform and did not play.

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Point guard Pooh Richardson is eligible to be activated off the injured list after sitting out the last five games because of an ankle sprain. Sherman Douglas has to sit out two more games before he can be taken off the injured list because of a groin and quadriceps strain.