There is something special about Kevin Arnovitz' coverage of the Los Angeles Clippers. In this hype-filled season, we citizens of Clips Nation, we Clipper fans, have been given far more coverage of the team than we're accustomed to, than we've even gotten than in year's past. Heck, the second biggest daily newspaper in the region, the Orange County Register, actually restored it's Clippers beat after four years of treating the Clippers the same as any other NBA team not named the Lakers.
But while I think J.A. Adande is a fine sportswriter, and I'm happy to have the blanket Clippers coverage of top quality reporters like Arash Markazi and Ramona Shelburne and Pedro Moura and Brad Turner, there's something about Kevin's take on the Clippers that resonates differently with me. Dammit, I missed the guy when he was exiled to Miami last season, writing about a different team.
You need to read what Kevin wrote about the Clippers today. This isn't the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last, that KA has written what I was thinking, written what I was going to write, only I hadn't gotten around to it yet. When someone else writes about the Clippers, I say to myself "Well, sure, but what about this and this and this. You totally missed the point of that and that." Not so with Kevin. I read it and say "Yup. That's right. I have nothing to add." Well, I always have something to add, but you get the idea.
It's not just because Kevin is a fan, unlike other writers covering the team. Yes, he's a fan, but he's always been hyper-objective as well. He just gets the Clippers. He's been there, like us, for years and years, and he gets it. Even when he's writing something that requires little or not connection to the history of the team, he's just that much closer to the pulse of what's really happening. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but I doubt it.
Anyway, read what he wrote. I was about to write the same thing myself, but he beat me to it.