Whatever Floats Their Boat

Others might question him, but Mike Dunleavy rarely questions himself. He’s unsinkable, a good trait for a Clipper coach.

An ambitious New Yorker who has taken on his most ambitious challenge in trying to transform a longtime loser into a winner, Dunleavy has defied long odds since his birth 50 years ago next month. Coming into the world seven weeks premature, he weighed only 3 pounds 8 ounces.

Doctors gave him a 10% chance to live, but by the time he’d reached Nazareth Regional High in Brooklyn, Dunleavy had developed into a promising baseball prospect, if only a middling basketball player, at which time his baseball coach suggested he’d probably be better off concentrating on one sport.

To the dismay of the helpful coach, his own parents and assorted other relatives and rivals, who all said he was crazy, he picked basketball.

“Good luck,” his father said. “You’re not going to make it.”

Despite a shortage of size and athleticism, he willed himself into becoming an all-city player as a high school senior and a four-year starter at South Carolina, where his coach, Frank McGuire, said of him, “Toughest player I ever coached.”

But at 6 feet 2, he was considered the longest of longshots to reach the NBA. A sixth-round pick of the Julius Erving-era Philadelphia 76ers, he was an afterthought. Ahead of him were 13 players with no-cut contracts, not to mention more abundant physical gifts. Those things didn’t stop him either.

He made the team, reaching the NBA Finals as a rookie. He played 11 seasons with four teams, once leading the league in three-point shooting, another time setting a record by scoring 48 points in a game as a reserve. In 1981, he was in the NBA Finals again, this time as a starter, with the Houston Rockets.

His career cut short because of a back injury, he turned to coaching after two years with a Wall Street investment firm because, “I started to understand, I’m probably not going to run Merrill Lynch.”

In 1990, after four years as an assistant coach with the Milwaukee Bucks, he was handpicked by Jerry West to succeed legend-at-large Pat Riley as coach of the Lakers.

Not for the first time in his life, Dunleavy was told he’d be crazy to take the job. It was a no-win situation, too risky. The Lakers were in decline.

In his first season, they reached the NBA Finals.

So when Dunleavy says that his ultimate goal is to bring a championship to the Clippers, it’s easy to scoff, given their history of false steps.

But given his history, there’s little doubt that he believes.

Longtime Clipper insiders say that Dunleavy, who twice took the Portland Trail Blazers to the Western Conference finals, has brought a level of professionalism to the team not seen since Larry Brown left town 11 years ago.

“He’s made a great difference,” says co-captain Elton Brand, who in his third season with the Clippers is playing for his third coach. “No disrespect to any of the former coaches, but he brings respectability to the team.

“We know he’s coached great players and he knows how to win, so it’s instant respect. You want to listen to him.

“The objective here is winning; it’s not having a good time.”

Of course, it won’t happen overnight and, as in all things relating to the Clippers, much depends on the whims of owner Donald Sterling.

As usual, they seem to be in no hurry, but patience might pan out.

Their last-second victory Saturday at Milwaukee gave them a 24-30 record and left them tied for 12th in the West, six games out of a playoff spot and, for what would be the eighth consecutive year, almost surely headed for the lottery. Statistically, they rank among the NBA’s worst defensive teams.

But overall, thanks in part to Dunleavy’s sideline machinations, they’re better than expected after losing three starters to free agency last summer, plus veteran sharpshooter Eric Piatkowski, a key reserve.

Their starting center, Chris Kaman, is a rookie and their starting point guard, Marko Jaric, is in his second season. Brand, their leading scorer and rebounder, sat out 13 games because of a broken foot. Of the 12 players on the active roster, only journeyman Doug Overton has played in more than five NBA seasons, and he had fallen so far out of the rotation that last week he was put on the injured list.

Though he professes to love teaching, Dunleavy has had to spend more time on fundamentals than he ever would have anticipated. But the Clippers are young, athletic and willing to learn. And, like their coach, they never give up. They lead the league in offensive rebounds, mostly through determined effort.

“Mike Dunleavy is doing a great job,” Coach Hubie Brown of the Memphis Grizzlies said earlier this month after the Clippers, in the last game of an eight-game trip and without injured starters Corey Maggette and Quentin Richardson, had stayed close into the final minutes against the Grizzlies. “I give him a lot of credit.”

For the forever-rebuilding Clippers, the future looks brighter too, Dunleavy says. Their frontline of Brand, Kaman and Maggette should be in place for the next four seasons, at least. They’re several million dollars under the salary cap, so they’re in position to pursue free agents this summer, if Sterling is willing. Which Dunleavy believes he is, depending on whom the Clippers are pursuing.

Of course, this season might have turned out differently if they’d made a few more moves last summer. Breaking with tradition, the Clippers retained free agents Brand and Maggette, matching offer sheets the players had signed elsewhere, and made a play for free agent Gilbert Arenas.

But they lost out on Arenas, who would have given them the penetrating point guard they’ve lacked this season, and failed to retain the versatile Lamar Odom.

“We came really close to having this team with Arenas and Odom,” Dunleavy says. “And if we had that team, I’m telling you what, I’d be really disappointed if we weren’t in the playoffs. I’d bet anything that we’d be a playoff team.”

As it is, it will take a minor miracle for them to make the playoffs this spring. In fact, the playoffs are mentioned mostly as a future goal, as in, maybe next year.

Still, Dunleavy believes that Sterling is determined to shed his image as sports’ ultimate loser, even as others tell the coach not to get his hopes up.

“They tell me I’m crazy,” he says. “But I believe people until they prove me wrong. I take them at face value, and when they tell me something, I believe they’re going to do it. So far, everything is great. I love it here. The organization has been terrific. Everything we’ve wanted to do we’ve been able to do.”

He says he has been promised a practice facility, which would bring the Clippers in line with 90% of their competitors, and hopes to be in it next year. Unlike the past, when everyone was looking to flee, “tons of players have said they want to come and play for us now,” Dunleavy says. He hopes to stay put for a while, if not for good. He and wife Emily are building a house in Brentwood.

This summer, he says, looms large for the Clippers. “We’ve got money, and we’ve got to spend it the right way. We’ve got to make a good draft pick.”

This time next year, he expects to be in the playoff picture.

“If we make some changes and add some pieces for next season,” he says, “that’s where the expectations go -- legitimately, honestly.”

Let everyone else remain skeptical. Dunleavy believes.

Of the Clippers’ laughable history, he says, “I can’t battle that, can’t worry about that. The only thing that’s going to change that is results.”

And he expects to deliver.