Clippers Receive Positive Feedback

The playoffs might be beyond their reach this season, but the Clippers seem to be headed in the right direction.

At least, that’s the impression Elton Brand gets from talking to his fellow NBA players. Brand said that several potential free agents, eyeing a summer payday, have told him they’d love to board the Clipper ship.

“Every game,” he says of the on-court conversations. “We play well or we win, guys are whispering -- top-notch guys to middle-of-the-line players to guys [who] I’m like, ‘I don’t want you on my team.’

“But still they’re whispering, ‘Save some of that [salary] cap room for me.’ It’s surprising. But I guess the players can see the difference.”

Asked if any of those players wore No. 8, he laughed.

“No. 8 hasn’t said anything like that,” he said, referring to Kobe Bryant, who will draw interest from several clubs this summer, the Clippers among them. “He said some things, though, and some people close to him have said some things.”

All of this is music to Mike Dunleavy’s ears.

“I think it’s very positive,” the coach said. “I’m very positive about where we are and the direction we’re going. I think that we’ll have a practice facility, a new one and a good one, within a year to a year and a half.

“And the team we’re building, I think guys are very positive about it. That was the intent: Let’s show people that [the old Clipper way] is not the way it’s going to be.”

*

Speaking of free agents, the Clippers might have been in the playoff picture this season, might have drawn bigger crowds to Staples Center and might have been unbeaten on their current trip instead of 3-2, if they had taken care of business last summer.

In Dunleavy’s best-case scenario, they would have retained versatile forward Lamar Odom, who bolted to the Miami Heat, and added former Van Nuys Grant point guard Gilbert Arenas, who signed with the Washington Wizards.

In the opening game of the trip, Odom had 25 points and 14 rebounds in a 97-88 Heat victory and then, after the Clippers won three in a row, Arenas scored a game-high 25 points Friday night in a 112-100 Wizard victory.

*

TONIGHT

at New York, 4 PST, Channel 5

Site -- Madison Square Garden.

Radio -- XTRA (690/1150).

Records -- Clippers 22-26, Knicks 24-27.

Record vs. Knicks (2002-03) -- 1-1.

Update -- Corey Maggette scored 22 points Friday night, returning to the lineup after sitting out 1 1/2 games because of a sprained ankle.