10. In the post-Isiah era, is Mike Dunleavy the single most destructive coach/executive in the NBA right now?
Forget that he’s a mediocre coach and an even worse GM, that Clippers fans openly grumble about him during games, that he dresses like a movie usher, that he forced out Elgin Baylor (only an NBA icon and the most beloved employee in the organization), that he clearly has nude photos of somebody important and that can be the only explanation for all of this.
Forget that he only succeeded for one season with the Clippers — when Sam Cassell was basically running the team — and screwed up the 2006 playoffs with the forever-indefensible substitution of an ice-cold rookie named Daniel Ewing during the biggest moment of the Phoenix series (when Raja Bell hit the game-tying 3-pointer in Game 5 over, you guessed it, Daniel Ewing).
Forget that he spent $65 million on Baron Davis this summer — a player who only thrives in a specific type of freewheeling system — then saddled him in a half-court offense with two centers and about 500 plays. Well done. Way to know your personnel, Mike. Maybe that’s why, within five games, poor Baron was regarding you with the same contempt that somebody’s wife would have if their husband showed up at 7 in the morning reeking of booze and cigarettes and wearing the previous day’s clothes. He couldn’t be more bummed out. It’s not possible. You did this to him.
Forget that he blew the only asset he had after Elton Brand screwed over the team — cap space — by acquiring 34-year-old Marcus Camby, as if this team had a chance to contend or something, when he already had another starting center making $10 million a year named Chris Kaman. Forget that he blew any chance they had for a superstar in the Summer of 2010 by dumping Cuttino Mobley’s corpse and Tim Thomas’ corpse to New York for Zach Randolph, leading to a Camby-Randolph-Kaman logjam down low that should go great with Baron’s run-and-gun game. And forget that Camby and Kaman now have matching discount signs around their necks and Dunleavy pretends he isn’t shopping them to other teams.
(Quick tangent: The previous two paragraphs were just an incredible sequence of events. There was no rhyme or reason to those three moves other than, “I have no plan whatsoever.” It was like watching someone open an Irish bar in downtown Boston, then serve wine, cheese and caviar to the confused customers. I gotta say, I loved it. As a season-ticket holder who only attends Clipper games to see opposing teams and prays for as much unintentional comedy as possible, this season has been a godsend … and Randolph hasn’t even thrown a punch at Ricky Davis yet. Is it too late to sign Ruben Patterson and Michael Richards? I might send them an extra $2,000 as a “Thank you!”)
Again, forget all these things. Just come back with me to two Mondays ago. The Clippers are tied with a depleted Spurs team. Less than 29 seconds remain on the clock. I’m talking to the disgruntled father-son combo behind me (Lenny and Jessie) and make the mistake of saying that the Clips might pull this one out.
“No!!!!!” Jessie screams.
He grew up going to Clipper games, like me with the Celtics, only the bizarro experience. He knows better.
“You don’t understand!” he continues. “They’re going to make the go-ahead shot, and we won’t even get a shot off! That’s how this game is going to end! And it’s going to keep ending this way until you alert the entire country that MIKE DUNLEAVY IS A TERRIBLE COACH AND NEEDS TO GO!!!!!”
Well, then. I think I said something like, “Hey, how ’bout those Mets!” and turned back to the game. The Spurs came out of timeout and ran a high screen with Duncan and Roger Mason. Both defenders went with Duncan — of course they did, it’s a poorly coached team — and Mason nailed a wide-open, go-ahead 3-pointer. Eight seconds left. I turned back to Jessie, who was nodding maniacally and screaming, “See! See! Now watch this. We won’t get a shot off!”
Dunleavy called timeout to set up a play that obviously should have been, “Baron, we’ll set you a double screen, beat someone off the dribble, pull up and drain a 3-pointer.” Again, Baron Davis is on this team. He lives for these moments.
They come out of the huddle. The first sign of trouble: Three-point specialist and 12th man Steve Novak has entered the game for the Clippers. Why? I have no idea. This is a Dunleavy speciality — throw the coldest bench guy in the game in the biggest possible spot. With the Spurs still trickling onto the court after the timeout, we watch in horror as Novak is STRETCHING to get himself loose. He’s stretching! He looks like a 45-year-old guy who just got called into a Thankgiving touch football game. That’s followed by a 20-second timeout, which gives Novak time to perform an impromptu pilates session at the top of the key. At this point, I would have bet my life on a Novak airball to end the game. And thank God nobody took the bet, because this is the play they ran:
Ball goes into Baron near midcourt. He dribbles left and hands the ball off to Ricky, who’s coming the other way and stops. A couple of problems here: First, Ricky might be the worst swingman in the league right now. (Look at his stats. He’s an abomination. He’s 29 years old going on 47. Through 13 Clipper games before he was mercifully benched, Ricky was shooting 27.2 percent from the field and 27.3 percent on 3-pointers. At least he’s consistent.) I guarantee that, in the Spurs huddle, Popovich never said the words, “Look, be careful with Ricky Davis, don’t let him beat us!” You can imagine his delight as Ricky killed time at midcourt. Meanwhile, the clock was dwindling. 5 … 4 … 3. The fans started screaming in horror. This was like watching a little kid wander into traffic.
At the two-second mark, Ricky passed to Baron Davis, who had just sprinted a lap around halfcourt — going from the top of the key to the left corner, then under the basket, then to the right corner, and now he was popping out in front of the Clippers’ bench. Normally, this would have been an awesome play if, you know, Baron Davis didn’t have to run a half-court lap in five seconds. I don’t even think Usain Bolt could do this. So Baron catches the pass and has to immediately hoist up a three while flying full-speed the other way after having broken the world record for “fastest half-court lap ever.” As the pass is heading toward Baron, Tim Duncan — one of the smarter players of all time — realizes that, “Hey, there are only two seconds left, as soon as Baron catches this, he has to throw it up.” So he jumps out on Baron.
Now Baron catches the ball with his body going 35 mph away from his own basket and two players jumping at him, one of whom is 6-foot-11, so he rushes up a 25-foot 3-point shot. You’re not going to believe this, but it didn’t go in. It didn’t even hit the rim. The good news was that Steve Novak got some solid stretching in.
And as we were filing out of the Staples Center in complete and utter disgust, wondering how the Clippers could possibly run a play that took 12 seconds to execute — minimum — when they only had eight seconds, I turned to see a disgusted Jessie again.
“Hey, at least the shot hit the backboard,” I joked. “Moral victory!”
Jessie couldn’t speak. He’s about 15 more home losses away from pulling a Reverse Artest, charging the court, tackling Dunleavy and serving the mandatory prison sentence.
My point is this: Somehow, someway, in one of the most inexplicable turn of events that’s ever happened in this league, Mike Dunleavy is the only person currently coaching an NBA team and handling personnel decisions at the same time. Mike Dunleavy! How does this happen? My head hurts.
