Replacing Brand Not One-Man Job

Their Japan adventure behind them, the Clippers returned home Sunday and looked ahead to the 80-game U.S. portion of their schedule, about the first one-quarter of which they’ll play without injured co-captain Elton Brand.

In Saturday’s 124-105 loss to the Seattle SuperSonics at Saitama, Japan, which dropped the Clippers to 0-2, Chris Wilcox filled in for Brand as the starting power forward, scoring 13 points and taking four rebounds in 20 minutes.

Coach Mike Dunleavy, however, indicated that Wilcox had ascended to the starting role only because he’d had “a couple good days of practice.” Also, Melvin Ely was slowed because of an injured left shoulder.

“We’ll rotate it around,” Dunleavy said of the playing time that, if not for a broken right foot, would have been allotted to Brand. “Not one guy will pick up the full 36 to 40 minutes that Elton might have played.

“It will be given to different guys, and they can build on that based on what they can do and how consistently they can do it.”

As the Clippers move forward, starting with Friday’s game against the Nuggets at Denver, playing time at center and power forward probably will be divided among Wilcox, Ely, Predrag Drobnjak and rookie Chris Kaman.

With Brand sitting out, Drobnjak had 10 points and eight rebounds in 22 minutes; and Kaman had seven points and six rebounds in 20 minutes.

Ely, who probably would have started if he hadn’t injured his shoulder in the Clippers’ Oct. 24 exhibition finale, played three minutes. “He had only practiced a little bit,” Dunleavy said, “so I didn’t think it was fair to put it on him.”

It’s on them all now, with Brand not expected back in the lineup before the end of the month, and probably not until the middle of December.

“It is what it is, and now it becomes an opportunity for someone else,” Dunleavy said of Brand’s injury, which was suffered last week in practice but didn’t keep him out of a 109-100 loss in the opener. “We have a lot of young players on this team, and it’s going to be a chance to sprinkle 36 to 40 minutes around and, hopefully, over time, find somebody to emerge that can be a great help to us.”

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This is the seventh consecutive season the Clippers have started 0-2. The last time they didn’t, in 1996-97, they made the playoffs after splitting their first two games.... Last season, they lost four of their first five and never reached .500.