They Change Coaches but Nothing Else

There’s a Spanish word for the Clippers’ decision to fire Coach Alvin Gentry on Monday: theseQue?

Why wait until now, the first week in March, to make a move that everybody could see coming in January?

It’s too late to make a difference, and not enough time to get a fair assessment of Gentry’s replacement, Dennis Johnson.

So dumb. So confusing. So Clippers.

By the time they finally pushed Gentry off the ledge, the Clippers were 19-39 and hopelessly out of the playoff hunt. If this were such a make-or-break season, the Clipper brain trust should have tried to salvage it while it was still salvageable.

What’s the point of trying to turn things around now? They’d be better off continuing their losing ways to procure as many ping-pong balls as possible in the LeBron James lottery.

Let’s just say the Clippers operate on their own schedule. (I think they’re starting to realize that the bull market’s over on Wall Street.)

The Clippers lost six consecutive games from Dec. 27 to Jan. 5, dropping their record to 12-22. That should have set off some alarms right there. Yeah, the Lakers were right there with them, but the Clippers didn’t have the luxury of waiting for Shaquille O’Neal to round into shape and Kobe Bryant to morph into Michael Jordan II.

If they wanted to revive the season and have a shot at the playoffs, the Clippers needed to do something drastic. They didn’t make any trades, so the next move would have been to fire the coach. It’s the most knee-jerk reaction in sports, but at least it shows an organization is making an effort, that it won’t tolerate losing.

When asked about Gentry’s reaction, General Manager Elgin Baylor said, “To be honest, he expected it to happen sooner.”

Instead it happened later. The Clippers’ spin was that they were trying to be fair.

“To give him every opportunity,” Baylor said. “[To see], can it get any worse than where we’re going now?”

The answer turned out to be “Yes.” The Clippers slid into the All-Star break by losing seven of eight and falling to 17-32. Watching Gentry walk around with a ghastly expression, it was clear the Clippers weren’t doing him any favors by keeping him around. But Donald Sterling probably couldn’t stand the thought of paying someone to do nothing.

If the Clippers were so compassionate, they wouldn’t have sent Gentry into the season with a roster loaded with free-agents-to-be. That’s like asking a substitute teacher to tame a classroom on the last day of school.

Baylor wasn’t hearing any talk about the contract status affecting his team’s play.

“You have an obligation to the fans when you go out there and play,” Baylor said.

He’s 100% correct.

But where’s the organization’s obligation? Where’s the commitment to the players and the fans, the proof that the players’ work and the ticket-buyers’ money will be rewarded with an investment in the team?

Gentry’s assistant, Dennis Johnson, is the new for-the-moment coach. Unfortunately, Sterling is still the owner. That means the Clippers aren’t going forward, no matter how many times they change coaches. And, for the record, this is the ninth time since 1990.

They’ve officially moved back to 2000, which could be dangerous, because I doubt the Clippers had the foresight to ensure their computers were Y2K compliant.

When the Clippers fired their coach three years ago, Johnson was an assistant. If he’s the answer, they could have hired him then and saved Gentry the moving expenses and Sterling the $4.5 million he paid Gentry these last three years.

I mocked the Clippers’ decision to hire Gentry in the summer of 2000, yet from the day I met him, he treated me the same way he treated everybody else: with respect and kindness, buttressed by a never-ending supply of funny stories. Gentry is as good a person as I’ve encountered in more than a decade of covering sports. (He even found it in his heart to thank Sterling and wish him well in a statement Monday. He’ll go to heaven for those two sentences alone.)

Gentry got the Clippers to play hard every night his first year, which marked major progress from the year before. And the 15-67 team he inherited went 31-51 the next season and 39-43 last year.

But after a summer in which the Clippers failed to lock up one player to a long-term contract, Gentry couldn’t get the players past their disappointment. And, sympathetic to their desires to earn new contracts, he tried to give as much playing time to as many players as possible, to the detriment of the team.

“He probably was too nice,” Baylor said.

Johnson came in promising to be mean, and he could work out.

“He’s an ex-player, ex-champion,” forward Lamar Odom said. “Everybody’s got a good rapport with D.J. I don’t think it’s going to be hard for him to take over at all.”

But if he doesn’t fit, do you think Sterling would spend the money on a big-name coach? Yeah, right. Especially now that Landlord Donald is facing all of those legal fees in the lawsuit by some of his Latino and African American tenants alleging racial discrimination.

Here’s the problem, even if they do want to shell out the big bucks: What established coach would want to walk into this mess, when Elton Brand, Michael Olowokandi, Corey Maggette, Quentin Richardson and Andre Miller could leave as free agents over the next two years?

I’m so sick of the Clippers and their coaching changes. Call me when they change owners.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com.