It’s Still Half-Full to Them

On the bright side, Clipper fans, or those of you who remain, your season is still on!

I know we’re only two weeks and one home game into it, but by this time last season, last season was effectively over. Donald T. Sterling didn’t sign any players, the team was upset in the home opener by the lowly Cavaliers and that was just about that.

The players did stick around until April, even if it was just to get paid before six of them took their careers elsewhere, two more tried and the other four, who were still under contract, crossed another year off their calendars.

Contrast that to the excitement Tuesday night.

To be totally honest, it wasn’t exactly like their golden age, er, season of 2001-02 when they put on nightly dunk shows, made a playoff run and sold out the last 18 games. Tuesday’s announced attendance of 16,562 looked soft, with half-empty sections at the ends of the lower bowl and completely empty sections at the ends of the upper deck, as in their days of old.

Of course, there are some important differences between last season and this one: 1) Mike Dunleavy is here and 2) half the players are gone.

It’s true, the roster that was once chock-full of talent has been depleted. However, unlike last season, the players aren’t totally disheartened and now compete, even in the absence of their star Elton Brand.

The new spirit explains how the Clippers could let Atlanta shoot 70% in the first quarter, 54% in the second, still lead the Hawks at halftime and cruise to a 115-103 victory.

Obviously, it wasn’t the Clippers’ defense. The fact they were playing the Hawks, who were on the second-to-last game of a five-game, eight-day West Coast trip, helped too.

The buoyant Dunleavy has yet to be crushed by the weight of Clipper tradition. Clipper people contend that wasn’t true for Alvin Gentry, who made no secret of his dismay at Sterling’s refusal to sign anyone. The front office thought Gentry was trying to make himself look good at the organization’s expense. Personally, I thought Gentry was like a man who had a piano drop on his head and said, “Ouch.”

Dunleavy, as Laker fans will remember, is hardly risk-averse, having begun his coaching career replacing the legendary Pat Riley.

Not that that went smoothly from the beginning. Dunleavy was asked what he could remember about his Laker debut in 1990.

“Other than I lost it?” he answered. “Let me see if I can remember. We were in San Antonio, we had a loss, Larry Brown was the coach.... We flew home, I went to Michael’s for dinner and I didn’t have a good time. Think I remember it?

” ... I think we were 1-4 and then I went to Houston and James Worthy [who had been arrested] wasn’t there for the start of the game. So I was kind of sitting there, wondering a little bit.”

That season ended in the NBA Finals. The next season, Magic Johnson retired and the one after that, Dunleavy left for a big offer in Milwaukee, where things didn’t turn out so well, after which he landed in Portland and coached the Trail Blazers to a 15-point, fourth-quarter lead over the Lakers in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals before the bottom fell out there too.

Here he is, 13 years later, with less hair but no less moxie, starting over.

Hired by the Clippers last summer, he told his dare-to-succeed-Riley stories, after which six free agents left. So he rebuilt around Brand, who got hurt in the very first game.

Snakebit?

Us?

“Just to be really honest about it, of course, if this was the last year of my contract ... there’d be a lot more to it,” says Dunleavy of Brand’s injury. “I really look at this -- it’s not a cliche -- this is a great opportunity.

“We can’t help it, The guy broke his foot. I can’t put my hands over him and heal the guy. That’s not going to happen. So it’s a great opportunity for Chris Wilcox, Melvin Ely, for the guys to step up, gain some experience that I would have never given them.

” ... Now they’re going to get it and I’ve seen strides already from them.”

On Tuesday, Wilcox, who wouldn’t have been playing, had 19 points and Quentin Richardson, the next Clipper who will have to be paid or bade farewell, had 32 with 16 rebounds.

It’s not the way it was, but it is an opportunity.