Lassen: Old guard, not new blood, key for Clippers

 

EL SEGUNDO — The local NBA franchise that remains a basketball team, rather than a soap opera in Nikes, worked out a number of players Monday in preparation for Thursday's draft.

The Los Angeles Clippers have the No. 14 pick in that draft, and general manager Elgin Baylor and coach Mike Dunleavy said all the usual things after that session about looking for a player who can make an immediate contribution, and how strongly they believe the Los Angeles Clippers can rebound from the disappointment that was the 2006-07 season.

Of course, as they said this, the player who could make all that happen — the guy they could add who could truly make a difference — was working up a sweat at one end of their practice facility, looking every bit like the kind of impact player the Los Angeles Clippers need.

His name is Sam Cassell.

Never mind whatever youngster the team may add Thursday evening. If the Los Angeles Clippers are going to bounce back, it's going to be the 38-year-old Sam Cassell who makes it happen.

On the flip side, if Sam Cassell has another season like last year — when abdominal, back and foot injuries kept him out of 24 games and limited him to 12 minutes or less in 10 others — the Los Angeles Clippers' draft pick is likely to be irrelevant to their short-term success, however significant it might eventually be to their future.

And so the sight of Sam Cassell on the court and working hard was probably more significant than anything the team saw from the various young players it brought in.

And the sight and sound of a healthy Sam Cassell — who is, after all, the Michael Jordan of on-court chatter — is music to the ears of Dunleavy and Baylor.

"I think you can always judge Sam by level of conversation," said Dunleavy, smiling. "If he's loud and talking a lot, he's feeling good."

And his current level of verbosity would be ?

Dunleavy laughed.

"He's kind of yappy right now."

Indeed, Sam Cassell's voice filled the court. And when he was done, he happily confirmed that he felt better than he had at any time last season, when he was slowed by abdominal, back and foot problems.

"I wish the season was going on right now and I felt like this," he said. "We'd still be playing in the postseason."

Since, in late June, that would require the Los Angeles Clippers to be about 11 games into the best-of-seven NBA Finals, this clearly qualified as a classic bit of Sam Cassell hyperbole. Still, the point was clear. The season is still four months away, but Sam Cassell is revved up and ready to go. There's no possible way this can be a bad thing for the Los Angeles Clippers.

You can question how good or bad it is to be reliant on a 38-year-old, as they so clearly showed themselves to be last season. You can wonder what happens if he breaks down again, given that the supposed point guard of the future, Shaun Livingston, has proven to be about as durable as a china teacup, meaning the Los Angeles Clippers almost certainly have a point guard at the top of their draft-day shopping list, if there's a decent one available.

But given their current situation, a healthy Sam Cassell is not only good news. It's vital. And no one is more willing to proclaim how vital it is than Sam Cassell himself. He's quite comfortable linking the Los Angeles Clippers' playoff hopes to his health.

"My whole goal is to play at least 75 games next year," he said. "If I can play 75 games, we'll definitely be a playoff team.

"I'm definitely looking forward to this year. It's going to be a year that I'm going to remember, because I'm going to come out with a vengeance. Not for anyone in particular; just because I know how much I mean to the ballclub and how much my guys needed me."

He even says it's his fault the Los Angeles Clippers didn't have an All-Star last year, and wants to correct that.

"When I'm out there, EB feels fine," he said, referring to Elton Brand, then making a brief excursion into the third person, "and we get back to that point where Sam Cassell's taking over games down the stretch and Sam Cassell's making one of his teammates an all-star.

"This was the first year in a long, long time that I didn't have a teammate that was an all-star."

Now, you can call this bravado. You can call it ego. You can find it endearing (which it usually is when you hear it) or annoying (which is how it might read).

But at the bottom line, this is a player saying it's his fault his team didn't do better last year, and taking the responsibility for making it better himself.

It's a fairly pointed contrast to, say, a guy complaining he needs better guys around him and placing the responsibility for improvement everywhere else. Not that we'd ever see anyone do something like that.

It's also pretty good news for the Los Angeles Clippers.

Certainly, the team needs to improve itself through the draft and free agency.

But a healthy Sam Cassell probably beats any pickup the team can make this summer.

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