Dunleavy Tries to Get to the Core of the Matter

The other night Coach Mike Dunleavy made it clear the Clippers were playing for their jobs, and so I wondered why he was playing the role of bully and threatening the Clippers’ poor fringe players, who have to understand already that they are stiffs if they are only fringe players for the Clippers.

Dunleavy said, “I’m not talking about the fringe players. I’m talking about the core players here,” which suggests Dunleavy has lost it, which is what you would expect from someone coaching the Clippers.

The Clippers’ core players are not only under contract for the next few years, but their pay is guaranteed, which makes it impossible to threaten their jobs.

“I can trade them, or sit them on the bench,” Dunleavy snapped, and I think I’m beginning to understand why the Clippers ended last season losing 14 of their last 16, and why they’ve dropped 11 of their last 15 this season.

You tell a bunch of Clippers that if they continue to dog it and thereby risk getting traded to another team, and I’m surprised they all don’t run out onto the court, roll over and ask to have their bellies tickled.

You think someone really wants to play for the Clippers?

Elton Brand signed an offer sheet to leave and go to Miami, but the Clippers matched it, thereby preventing his escape.

Corey Maggette signed an offer sheet to leave for Utah and the Clippers stopped him. The team’s two best players didn’t want to be here. Throw in the team’s top two young players, Chris Kaman and Shaun Livingston, and they’re stuck here for years unless they can get themselves traded.

The Clippers won Tuesday night, of course, because it probably dawned on some of these guys that Dunleavy might get really mad, and trade them to the Lakers.

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IT PRETTY much happens to everybody. They arrive optimistic, believing they have what it takes to make a difference, and then they become Clipperized.

Dunleavy continues to fight it, beating the Lakers, like that’s anything really big these days. Dunleavy is guaranteed $2.5 million this season, $2.5 million next season and the one after that, and I think it’s pretty obvious why there are no built-in raises season after season if you’re coaching the Clippers.

The other night he tried a different tack to get his team’s attention, telling it to go out and just win one game at a time, and so they tried and lost to Memphis. Angry, he unloaded on them in the locker room, according to a witness, and then used the media a few minutes later to threaten the players’ sense of security.

He wouldn’t name names, which seemed kind of counterproductive because if you really want to scare someone you should probably let them know. I’m not sure some of these guys know what day of the week it is.

“I feel the immediacy of our situation, and I’m trying to get that across to our players,” Dunleavy said, and I wonder whether Frank Hamblen has thought of that.

What next? I wondered.

“I don’t know, Knute,” Dunleavy said, and you have to admire a Clipper coach who maintains his sense of humor.

“You can take it as a bluff, you take it as fact, or whatever,” Dunleavy said. “At some point something could happen; I’m going to play the guys that can win.”

I closed my eyes and I could hear Alvin Gentry saying the same thing.

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THEY’VE SCHEDULED a Cooper Tires Media Free Throw Contest for halftime of UCLA’s Pacific 10 Conference tournament opener Thursday in Staples Center, which will earn $3,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network.

KABC’s Curt Sandoval, who ran the L.A. Marathon on Sunday, had been scheduled to take on Mrs. Grocery Store Bagger in the first round, but he must still be running because late word has him pulling out.

Mrs. Bagger is almost six months’ pregnant and packing a belly that blocks out the sun from certain angles, but she dominated a similar charity event at a Clipper game this season, and there’s some concern now that no one from the media will be willing to take her on.

I suggested Jack Haley from the “Southern California Sports Report,” because like the daughter he’s not really a member of the media. He not only declined, but while walking away said, “I know I wouldn’t lose to a [pathetic] girl.” Classy.

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THE E-MAIL continues to pour in from the “idiots,” who took exception to trainer Jeff Mullins’ assertion in The Times that anyone who goes to the track these days is either a “[gambling] addict or an idiot.”

E-mailer Otto Steinegeweg wrote: “They should put Mouth Mullins at the main gate and apologize to everyone who comes into Santa Anita for a week straight.”

A better idea might be for the track to designate Sunday as “Milkshake Mullins Day” and give all the idiots who enjoy horse racing a general admission discount, or free entrance to the track.

Santa Anita General Manager George Haines said “it will be discussed,” although I have a hunch it has a better chance of being called “$2 Bettors Day.”

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I’M TOLD a few Santa Anita fans Sunday were wearing “Got Milk?” T-shirts at the track, only they instead read: “Got Milkshakes?”

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IT’S BEEN two weeks since Deacon Jones, a member of the Fearsome Foursome, wimped out, lost to a sportswriter in the World Poker Tour Celebrity Invitational and then said he had to “go outside and just scream.”

I hope he’s OK, because he said he’d send a check to Cure Autism Now in my care to make good on a wager, and so far it hasn’t arrived.

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JACK NICKLAUS’ 17-month-old grandson drowned in a hot tub, funeral services were Saturday and Nicklaus on Monday honored a commitment to meet with the media -- a reminder that every athlete isn’t a self-centered, undependable boob.

“Life has got to move on,” he told the media. “Life is for the living. It hurts, but you go on. You make commitments, and you’ve got to do them.”

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T.J. Simers can be reached at t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.