Los Angeles Clippers: team history with more bad luck in the NBA
January 17, 2010 by bumeral
Filed under Basketball rumors
Since his move to Los Angeles, the Clippers have not only had to drag the nickname ‘poor brother’ in LA, because the other NBA team in the city were the Lakers, but have also suffered a multitude of episodes, as lesions, which made, when fate began to smile, it would give them back and they returned to reality, as usual for this team, which makes them a fixed within the group of losers league American basketball.
The year was 1988 when the Clippers selected the No. 1 draft pick (a position that usually occupy the best young player of the year). The choice was Danny Manning, a promising forward who would turn on the reconstruction project Clipper.
In just two years saw their two stars most promising is badly injured
I had not been 30 games (out of 82 regular season) when Manning, after jumping around the basket, he began to limp leg unable to support. He had broken ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injury that supposed to be, at least six months out. He missed the rest of the season.
Far from sinking, thought the Clippers the following season. Signed one of the most promising guards in the NBA. A young man named Ron Harper, who came to be the scoring star of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The effect was immediate. The Clippers started at full throttle the next season. And when everything seemed to work Ron Harper took the ball for a counterattack twisting his knee when he went up to the hoop. It just smashed the knee and say goodbye to the season. Another year and another lost project.
Manning and Harper, out of the Clippers
Both Manning and Harper left a few years later transferred to other computers. The first one he recovered and caught on big season in the teams he played for (in Atlanta was the undisputed leader and Phoenix Suns came to be awarded Best ’sixth man’ or best bench player in the NBA).
What Harper was even better. Ron eventually won NBA titles (five in total) at Chicago Bulls (with Jordan and Pippen) and the Lakers (with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant). All under the tutelage of Phil Jackson. His last, and glorious years were spent in LA but the gold was taken by the Lakers and the Clippers not.
Beginning of s. XXI: The jinx continues
Harper was not the only case in which a promise of future triumph just another team in town. Lamar Odom is another example. The current Lakers player (and winner of the ring last season) began his career with the Clippers. Their behavior problems, but especially knee injuries for several seasons running was not allowed to provide all the quality and advancement within the workforce of the Clippers. It ended up being traded and that was when he began to prove itself.
In both Harper and the Lakers have won titles Odom, the Clippers were injured both his knees
Odom was gone and with it another 1 draft pick, a call center Michael Olowokandi, who never show anything in the NBA. Nothing went as expected with the Clippers and every time she tried to put a up a project team Sachse Well I missed something on the ground. But bad luck had not disappeared …
Livingston’s knee is torn
In 2004, the Clippers tried again. They had Elton Brand, consolidated as NBA star, but very lonely on the computer. They chose as number four in the 2004 draft, to a promising foundation named Shaun Livingston, who many compared to a legend, Magic Johnson, for his height and easy on the eye and base positions near the basket.
Livingston had problems with injuries since his first year, but the worst came in February 2007. After a bad fall in a counterattack, Livingston shattered a knee, one of the most shocking injuries that are remembered today in the NBA.
Blake Griffin, the last case, this year
“It’s the new Karl Malone,” claimed many specialists from the league. The last No. 1 draft pick, Blake Griffin, was seen as the new Malone (player who has the second Meor scoring mark in NBA history, outstripping even stars like Michael Jordan).
The last case has been this season: the best rookie in the league will not play or a season game due to injury also
But Griffin could not debut in the regular season with the Clippers, nor will. The power forward will miss the entire course after his knee injury (produced in preseason) has worsened, forcing him to undergo surgery and will keep four to six months low.
He writes a new chapter in the book of the misfortunes of a team that, moreover, has to live with adjective ‘poor brother’ of Los Angeles, a city where the Lakers and Clippers laugh cry.
I’m a huge fan of Clippers and we always watch there game. I hope they win this season.