Will Any Papers be Covering the Clippers by the End of the Season?

I think you buried the lede on this one. The Ramona thing (has it been determined that she’s okay with us calling her the Pest? I’m happy to do it, but I’m not sure how it’s different from calling Kaman the Kaveman) is a potential bummer, but as you say it’s par for the course. The Pest was a piece of unexpected great news, actually, after the AT3 deal went down. This doesn’t seem to be big news, however, although it will affect us enthusiasts.

But the Kevin Arnovitz to True Hoop “Network” is a pretty big deal. And I agree, and think it will be good for the Clippers too. It’s a big step forward in new media, even if there’s something of an “eclipse” in fishwrap media. Unless I’m mistaken, KA has left his job at Marketplace (NPR) to go to work for ESPN. So, unlikely as it sounds, we have a Clipper Fan running the whole show. I was a bit curious about the uptick in KA’s efforts recently, not just him minding the store for HAbbott, but posting regularly, updating his site a bit, doing some morning roundups, and now we know why. He’s an excellent analyst, fair and thoughtful, and he knows his basketball, and now he’ll have more time to write about hoops and the Clips.

So I second the best wishes and congrats and would even recommend that our fearless leader CS might look for a way to flip the story here—I’d be curious to see the in-depth CS analysis of Clipperblog and its evolution, and the current state of the rising blogotide. More fun than working on the preview for the Laker game, I would imagine.

is the pest a reference to the beverly clearly book ?

Its sad to see local newspapers cut back on their staff and reporters as they lose readership and advertising revenues. The irony is that the few loyal readers they have left will slowy abandon traditional newspapers as the quality of their articles decline. As they rely more and more on AP wire reports, readers will continue to shrink, and this will draw in less advertisers and spur another round of job cuts.

For the Clippers franchise, this void in local reporting will eventually cause long term damage to the team’s viability. In the old days, when the LA Times, the OC Register, or the Daily News report Clippers games, they might do so in a disparaging or mocking manner, but the reporters were there for the game, writing about another loss for the moribound franchise. Awareness of the team was at least established. But now, most local papers don’t even bother to send a single reporter to cover the Clippers, so for most of the citizens of Los Angeles, the team might not as well exist.

While we have young talents like Gordon and a venerable old warhorse like Camby, most of the city doesn’t even know who these guys are. There are intriuging stories there; the Heisler article about Camby in the LA Time on Sunday is one. It shows Camby in a new light; his earlier disappointment in being “traded” by Denver, his growing enthusiasm for the city, and his stubborn work ethic as the team disintegrates around him and the losses mount up. The article makes you appreciate Camby even more. Sadly, there’s other stories out there about guys like Novak that will probably never be told.

Yes, the fanatical basketball junkies will find their way to hoopshype and the few Clippers fans in this city who grew up watching Norm Nixon in the Sports Arena will gravitate to this site and KA’s blog. But the fact that local news organizations have abandoned their traditional role of reporting local sports teams, its players, their stories, and the community will mean that our interests will fracture ever deeper in the coming years. There will be less to bind us a local community and we will identify more with like-minded individuals who share our interests. That is not a healthy scenario.

Just goes to show what hitting “publish” on a mediocre post can do—you end up working harder on the responses.

Your logic on KA is solid. And I think that the in-depth analysis doesn’t make sense, but it’s worthwhile to give KA all the appropriate support and congrats—the original post goes to show that Clipartisans are few and far between.

Beverly Cleary is a genius. My kids loved those books, and I remember digging a little Henry Huggins in my own childhood. Pestering Dunleavy makes sense, but shouldn’t we check in with RS to see if she was traumatized by Cleary references in childhood?

Outside of the Baron Davis/brand/Maggs triangle this summer, Clips have once again fallen back into the shadows of the LA Newspapers. Soon, the LA Galaxy will get more ink that the Clips. The Clips are like a bad joke. However, even bad jokes deserve coverage. Knicks have been bad for several years, but the Nets will never get more coverage.

Madglove spoke about moving the team to the OC. I have long opposed this, as Staples is one of the best arenas in the world. Nonetheless, it might help to get out from the Lakers shadow. The Honda Center is a definite downgrade, but it would be truly the Clips home. Obviously this will never happen as long as DTS is the owner, esp with the new training center at Playa Del Ray.

The Clips will never get equal billing until they win a championship. There was once a time the Angels were a side show in the SoCal. Now amazingly, they get equal billing, even as an OC team. When the Clips win, coverage will be better.

Where will the Clips play on radio, now that 710ESPN signed the Lakers? AM830? IF the Clips want to renew their fan base, they need media coverage.