Great Job ... Now Hands Off

Donald T. Sterling

Sterling World Plaza

Beverly Hills, Calif.

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Dear Donald,

It was nice seeing you at the game last week and thanks for introducing me to Mayor Villaraigosa. Before this, the biggest celebrity I had ever met at one of your games was Jimmy Goldstein.

Actually, I think I met Roseanne, who was sitting courtside with you the night we did our first interview in 1989. She was with Tom Arnold then and he got into a shouting match with some fans.

You beat Seattle, and Don Casey, your coach, came bounding over, saying you had to come to the dressing room to celebrate with them. Casey, whom you terminated shortly afterward, was just playing for time, but his future had already begun looking dim when you let his players come over to see you and complain about him.

Darn, haven’t we had the times?

Of course, those were the bad old days. That’s you atop the Western Conference standings! Unbelievable, wouldn’t you say?

It’s a new day, all right. This isn’t a fluke. For two seasons, you have run something resembling a normal NBA franchise.

Not you, personally, of course, but it adds up to the same thing. This is the way it’s supposed to work.

It started when Mike Dunleavy showed up in June 2003, with things going the way they always had. He had been hired only after weeks of the usual tortuous negotiations, having decided to come because he preferred, or dared, to work for you with better players and live here, where he wanted to retire, rather than rebuild with the Hawks in Atlanta.

Of course, you needed some rebuilding yourself, coming off a 27-55 season in which Alvin Gentry had been fired, with seven free agents, all of whom were making plans to leave.

A few days after Dunleavy was hired, there was a high-level meeting in your office. Out of that came an unprecedented mandate, a blank check to re-sign Elton Brand, Corey Maggette and Lamar Odom and to pursue free agent Gilbert Arenas.

Unfortunately, money wasn’t the issue at that point. Your old laughingstock tradition was. Arenas signed with the Wizards and all your players tried to flee. You kept Brand and Maggette only because you had the right to match their offers.

Nevertheless, Dunleavy brought a new spirit. Low-key as he is, his self-confidence is as big as all outdoors and it’s contagious. Overnight he had cachet none of your other coaches -- and indeed, none of your general managers -- had ever had. If he said you had to put up $100 million and impose a freeze on personnel moves that would cut into your cap room to go after Kobe Bryant, that’s what happened.

Elgin Baylor, a good basketball man, reaped years of scorn as your front man without ever getting anything like that. He couldn’t even get the money to extend Brand’s contract in 2002, which set up the disastrous 2002-03 season and the jailbreak that followed.

Baylor’s deal on hiring coaches was presenting you a list, from which you chose. Let’s just say this didn’t foster the best working relationship between your coaches and GM.

Of course, you and I have already been through this, haven’t we?

In 1997, Bill Fitch booted your team to a 36-46 record, which was good enough for your third playoff appearance in 22 years. Possibly out of your mind with joy, you gave him a two-year, $3-million extension, more than you had paid the rest of your coaches put together, declaring he was your new strong man.

That was about the time of the interview in your office when I asked about Baylor and you paused for dramatic emphasis before answering -- for 19 seconds, I found, when I timed the tape.

I’m serious, I wouldn’t trade our time together for anything. There was one problem. Fitch was a hard driver who was already at odds with your front office, to say nothing of his players. He went 17-65 and was fired ... just as his guaranteed $3-million extension was to kick in.

You solved that problem by suing him, claiming he hadn’t fulfilled his obligation to look for a new job ... at 63. After years of proceedings, he gave up and accepted a settlement.

This brings us to the central issue we keep encountering: you.

As a developer, you have all the confidence in the world, but as a basketball owner, you’re always looking up for the anvil that must be about to drop on your head. Actually, given your experience, I don’t blame you.

You’re always trying to limit your exposure and cut your losses.

If you want to see how it’s done, look at Jerry Buss, who decided he had to go with Bryant and packed off Shaquille O’Neal -- with no assurance at all that he could keep Kobe from signing with you. In fact, Laker officials cowered under their desks for two weeks as Kobe went right up to the last minute, trying to decide. That’s how close the Lakers came to being an expansion team.

These aren’t the old days. Players like Cuttino Mobley now opt to come, as opposed to the days when players like Wayman Tisdale took less to go elsewhere. Your practice site, thought to be as likely a prospect as Atlantis rising from the sea, is going up in Playa del Rey. Annual profits now run into tens of millions of dollars.

Meanwhile, you’re still doing your old Donald act, asking writers if they really, truly believe you can win. (As if we would know.) The night I was there, you were going on and on about that 12-point lead you blew ... before beating Minnesota in overtime to go 3-0, your best start in 20 years.

If you like the way this is going -- and you should -- roll with it. Give Dunleavy an extension on top of the one season after this he has left, to make it clear he’s your man. Anybody who got you to this point deserves that much.

Give Baylor, who has served you long and faithfully, as many years as it takes to keep him even with Dunleavy. They have a good working relationship, so let’s keep it that way.

To date, taking care of your people hasn’t been the Clipper way, unless you mean driving them out to the country and dumping them by the roadside, as with personnel director Barry Hecker this summer.

Hecker was a longtime employee, a tireless scout who was respected around the league.

It was OK if Dunleavy wanted his own guy, but the timing was awful. Hecker wasn’t let go until just before camp, too late to find a job this season.

Larry Brown, your one flirtation with success, came along at a good time in 1992, when you had enough players to win. Of course, he set out to redo your roster before deciding it was best to relocate himself, so it was only an 18-month romance, which was fast, even for him. It was the same deal for everyone; it looked like paradise coming in but the inferno on the way out.

Good men create their own opportunities. When Dunleavy arrived, the enterprise had turned profitable (you did that, moving here from San Diego right through David Stern in 1984, not going to Anaheim in ’99 as Stern and everyone else including moi urged, taking No. 3 billing in Staples Center). There were still some good players here when Dunleavy arrived, although not as many as there had been.

Now you’re as good as anybody. It’s not only excitement and potential, as it was four seasons ago when kids around the country wore Darius Miles’ No. 21 Clipper jerseys.

“It’s been a long time waiting for us,” Brand said the other day. “It sounds like a cliche, but it has. We’ve been trying to get the players, trying to win games. We gave the effort, but now it’s actually coming to fruition. It’s great. It’s a great start.”

That’s what it is, a start. Try getting behind it.

Of course, if you have any questions, like the usual -- “What is he talking about?” -- I’m always here for you.

Your devoted correspondent,

Mark