Pride and Professionalism

It's difficult to imagine that less than a month ago, the team was peaking at Memphis, one game below .500 before the water main broke.  Back then, the most incendiary topic on the blogosphere was the ineptitude of the Dunleavy led Clippers team to blow large leads and lose games.  Most of us were questioning how a talented team like the Clippers can't overachieve like the Rockets, Grizzlies, Thunder, injury-riddled Portland & Hornets, and whether Dunleavy was capable of coaching a roster that he has assembled.  After tonight's debacle against a Golden State team that suited 7 players--missing Monta Ellis, Maggette, Anthony Morrow, Azubuike, Brandon Wright, Radmonovic, Raja Bell--it has become painful to watch the depths to which this team has fallen.

Whether or not Dunleavy's removal/resignation at midseason was a good idea, the team now faces a serious existential crisis after only three games under Kim Hughes.  Losses, to an extent, are to be expected when there is a regime change and a rookie coach step up to the plate for the first time.  Sometimes, there can be a burst of energy and enthusiasm if the players are worn down from the previous regime.  In and of itself, an 0-3 start is not cataclysmic.  But an unsettling malaise that reared up in the San Antonio game became a full blown crisis tonight against Golden State.  The lack of pride and effort tonight from the players was disturbing.  It is almost as if, now freed of Dunleavy's hectoring, they no longer have any accountability toward themselves or their teammates.  The lack of any semblance of effort on defense, never mind teamwork, is an embarassment that defies description.  Losing to such an undermanned Golden State team might have been acceptable, to a degree, but losing the way they did hint at a deeper poverty of the spirit and it calls into question the viability of every man on the roster, which is painful to say.

Chronic losing, in a way, is corrosive to a player's psyche.  But sometimes, a loss like tonight can be more damaging than a ten game losing streak.  Embarassing losses are part of life in the NBA.  Teams will get hot and despite your best efforts, you will get torched from time to time.  But tonight, the blowout administered to us by Curry, Morrow, and someone named Anthony Tolliver was just numbing.  It wasn't them getting hot so much as we allowed them open shots time and time again and we didn't seem to care.  And once again, like the San Antonio game, we could not muster any semblance of a run to make a respectable showing against a seven man squad.  As their lead grew ever larger, I kept waiting for the Clippers to buckle down as in the Memphis game at Staples, but they played as if they had never played defense as a unit before.  We continued to leave guys open all over the floor,and more often than not, Baron never bothered to even run at the shooter.  Maybe we believe that to be a free flowing running team, we just need to leak out on defense and shoot quickly and forget about all the other stuff.  When a team is getting embarassed like we are, the players either come together with the intensity needed to save face, or they simply give up.  If a team gives up, it becomes every man for himself.  There is alot that can go wrong and very badly in the last 30 games of the season.  The most damaging maybe the downward trajectory of our promising young players as they look to pad their own numbers for free agency and develop selfish habits in an environment where the whole team just don't give a damn.

The psyche of the franchise is very fragile.  Even amidst the malaise of the 19 win season last year, I never saw that Mardy Collins, Freddy Jones, Novak unit gave up like they did tonight.  Every man on this roster now has to stew over the All Star break and come back together to face another wounded team in Portland.  For the most part, during the first 40 games of the season, the team has always bounced back after soul crushing losses.   How they respond after the break will tell alot about the collection of players we have and whether the team will have to be completely rebuilt once these players have lost all faith in one another.  I had thought that there were more downsides than upsides if Dunleavy were to leave abruptly in the middle of the season.  I had thought it was better to wait until summer and make a serious run at someone like George Karl if Denver were to let him walk.  That way, there would have been an orderly transition toward a new coach with real authority, and the team can continue to modestly improve on its record and develop its young nucleus with some stability in its remaining games, with an eye toward next year.  Never, did I thought that things would turn so badly so quickly, and that the downside might be the complete dissolution of this once promising roster. 

The heart of our players and their pride are the only thing left that matters this year.  We can throw out wins and losses and offensive philosophy.  They just have to muster the desire to compete as a unit.  If not, they will just be sick of seeing one another in the locker room, and they will all be marking time until their stay in the infamous Clippers prison is over.  As a long time fan, it is demoralizing to see this team sliding toward a familiar abyss.  I am more saddened than upset at our performance tonight.  I hope the players and coaches feel some sense of remorse for their lack of pride and professionalism.