I wasn’t at last night’s game because of the kids’ soccer practices. But Simers hasn’t watched the Clippers all season until last night. When I heard Milph talking about Simers asking a question before the game, I knew this column was coming.

I blame him.

This guy shouldn’t have a job. Ricky Davis got suspended for testing positive for pot. That gives Simers license to refer to him as a druggie? Really? For smoking pot? I’m not a Ricky Davis fan but even if he’d had a problem with hard drugs shouldn’t understanding and concern take precedence over mockery? This stuff makes me crazy. This guy gets paid by the Los Angeles Times to write this swill… and it’s thoughtless crap. He uses his press pass to gain access to the locker room then he baits players by asking provocative questions that have nothing to do with the game, then bashes the player in his idiotic column. Send him over to the New York Post or one of the supermarket rags. He’s crap.

In his defense, Simers is one of the few sportswriters who is willing to “break the fourth wall” (as they say in the movie biz) and acknowledge the more farcical aspects of professional sports and its participants. If he eschews the diplomacy and tact of typical sports writers, he does at least ask things other than the typical safe cliche questions that will elicit the same typical cliche answers. He’s about the only guy who will go up to a player after the game and ask him to his face why he sucked if he sucked. The smart players know his game and that if they show a sense of humor a willingness to play along he’ll cut you a lot of slack. Ask Manny Ramirez. The dumb ones eventually find out if you give him the cold shoulder you become his whipping boy. Ask Gary Matthews or Garrett Anderson. A couple of years ago he and Corey Maggette had words before a game, and Maggette was smart enough to seek him out and kiss and make up. Ricky D must have really pissed him off because the piece this morning was of the charts vicious, even for him. He went after Ricky but the whole Clipper organization. Normally his shtick reads as just shtick and you understand it’s suppose to be for a chuckle, but this morning he truly seemed angry.

but this guy is a DICK! I wish I could inspect his life. If I were the Clippers, I would not allow this man into the building.

Ricky may have his issues but who is this clown to judge?

I guess sometimes the truth hurts.