Dunleavy is drawing from lessons of last season

As the world squirms in Laker Land, the Clippers are mostly calm. The wounds on their faces, where they fell flat, are only small scars now.

It is summer, the always spirit-boosting draft is five days away and the big-gun-rival Lakers appear to have really shot themselves in the foot this time.

Around here, it is all Kobe, all the time; a fine whine that is not aging well. The Clippers have had the good taste, or fortune, to fiddle while Rome burns.

Certainly, it is not forgotten that the 2006-07 season was a failure, a golden opportunity flicked away by a few Clippers flakes.

But if it was a winter of discontent for Mike Dunleavy, it was also the kind of wake-up call for which some coaches seek alibis and others seek redemption. Dunleavy’s history points to the latter, to somebody who runs into burning buildings.

He is 53, a tough guy from Brooklyn, both book and street smart. He was an All-City athlete in New York, where All-City really means All-Universe.

He went to South Carolina, started in 105 straight games for the Gamecocks as a high-scoring guard and was a straight-A student in psychology. Phil Jackson isn’t the only coach in Los Angeles with Zen Master capabilities.

Dunleavy has coached more than 1,000 games in the NBA -- his record is 550-566 -- and he worked a season as a general manager (Milwaukee Bucks, 1996-97). He also spent two years, after he retired as a player, working for Merrill Lynch on Wall Street.

“If I had stayed with that,” Dunleavy says, “I’d be making more money than I am now.”

His current four-year contract with the Clippers is worth about $22 million.

People forget he was here before. He was 36 and had never been an NBA coach or top assistant when Jerry West knighted him to replace Pat Riley.

At the time West handed him the keys, the kingdom still included Magic Johnson and James Worthy. Dunleavy got them as far as the NBA Finals against the Chicago Bulls, before Worthy injured his leg and the Lakers bowed out in five games.

Dunleavy remains amazed at how he got to the Lakers.

“It started in the summer of ‘88,” he says. “I was out here to watch some Summer League games and I saw West in the bleachers. I asked if I could talk to him sometime. I had never met him before.”

Dunleavy says West invited him to sit down right then, and when Dunleavy asked whether he absolutely needed to be a No. 1 assistant somewhere in the league before getting consideration for a head job, he was stunned by West’s response.

“He said I did not have to do that, and added, ‘As a matter of fact, if Pat Riley were to resign tomorrow, you’d be the first guy I’d call.’ ”

Dunleavy says he learned he had been getting high marks from Del Harris and Don Nelson, and ended his conversation with West quickly after that.

“I didn’t want to say anything that would change his thought,” he says.

Riley’s Lakers were swept by Detroit in the 1989 Finals and went out in the Western Conference semifinals to Phoenix in 1990. Dunleavy was in town on vacation during the Suns’ series.

Dunleavy called Mitch Kupchak, then West’s assistant general manager, just to say hello, “and he invited me to a playoff game the next night,” Dunleavy said.

“The next morning, over breakfast, I’m reading the paper, the National Sports Daily, and there’s a story in there by Ted Green that says if Riley loses the game that night, he will be replaced by either Mike Dunleavy or Doug Collins.”

After wiping the spilled coffee off his lap, Dunleavy called Kupchak and, citing the newspaper story, suggested that it might not be a good idea for him to be at the game that night.

“Mitch went in, talked to Jerry, and came back and said that, yes, it would be better if I weren’t there,” Dunleavy says.

Riley and the Lakers lost, and shortly thereafter Dunleavy became coach. And while his tenure lasted only two seasons -- Johnson announced he had HIV in the second season and the Bucks were on the phone with an eight-year contract offer and a vice president title that enticed Dunleavy back -- a good coaching career had begun.

In 1999, he was NBA coach of the year for the Portland Trail Blazers, and four seasons ago he made his way to the poor side of L.A.’s pro basketball tracks.

Then, at the end of the 2005-06 season, with the Lakers already done, Dunleavy and the Clippers had a chance to turn L.A. on its ear. They had Phoenix in a Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals. They were one win from the conference finals. They were actually getting L.A. to root for them instead of laugh at them.

They lost, of course, but there was anticipation for another step forward last season. Instead, the Clippers missed the playoffs and derisive one-liners were back in vogue.

Next season will be Dunleavy’s fifth as Clippers coach, and while Kobe and the Lakers are fussing and feuding, the second-best player in the city, Elton Brand, is quietly preparing to make sure there is no repeat of his mediocre 2006-07 season. Dunleavy also says he and Corey Maggette have begun to address a failure to communicate that split them badly last season.

“Corey and I understand each other better now,” Dunleavy says. “I think our relationship is good.”

Maggette finished last season strong, and Dunleavy also hopes center Chris Kaman will return to form and Shaun Livingston will return to health.

“Mostly, I don’t even want to talk about last season,” Dunleavy says. “It’s time to go on.”

But quietly, so as not to entice Kobe down off his soapbox.

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Bill Dwyre can be reached at bill.dwyre@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Dwyre, go to latimes.com/dwyre.

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Staying power

Mike Dunleavy’s career coaching record:

*--* REGULAR SEASON POSTSEASON YEAR TEAM WINS LOSSES PCT WINS LOSSES PCT 1990-91 Lakers 58 24 707 12 7 632 1991-92 Lakers 43 39 524 1 3 250 1992-93 Milwaukee 28 54 341 0 0 000 1993-94 Milwaukee 20 62 244 0 0 000 1994-95 Milwaukee 34 48 415 0 0 000 1995-96 Milwaukee 25 57 305 0 0 000 1997-98 Portland 46 36 561 1 3 250 1998-99 Portland 35 15 700 7 6 538 1999-00 Portland 59 23 720 10 6 625 2000-01 Portland 50 32 610 0 3 000 2003-04 Clippers 28 54 341 0 0 000 2004-05 Clippers 37 45 451 0 0 000 2005-06 Clippers 47 35 573 7 5 583 2006-07 Clippers 40 42 488 0 0 000 TOTALS 550 566 493 38 33 535

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Source: NBA.com and the Clippers

Los Angeles Times