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The disaster that is the 2007-2008 Los Angeles Clippers season actually began last year, with the devastating knee injury to point guard Shaun Livingston, and continued into the summer when All Star forward Elton Brand blew out his Achilles heel during a routine workout. From there, the Clippers stayed a medical wasteland, forced to jerry rig together a roster from the scraps cast off by their NBA brethren. The results have not been pretty.

But despite everything that has gone wrong this year for the red, white, and blue, and there’s been a lot, that the train wreck will continue into next season is not guaranteed. The Clippers could field a team for the 2008-2009 campaign that includes a healthy Brand flanking Kaman in the post, a reconstructed Livingston, the athletic Maggette on the wings with an improving Al Thornton (who should easily finish in the top three in this year’s Rookie of the Year balloting). All that and a high lottery pick injected into the mix. That’s enough talent to make the Clips part of the conversation, even in the ultra-competitive Western Conference.
Or, it could be Armageddon. Maggette and Brand both have the ability to opt out of their contracts, and at least in the case of Maggette, there’s a good chance it’ll happen. Nobody knows if Livingston will be able to contribute. The Clippers could quickly find themselves with a lot of cap space and needing a rebuild- not exactly Donald Sterling’s specialty.

In short, there may not be an NBA team looking at more uncertainty than LA’s weak hoops sister. I had a chance to talk with coach Mike Dunleavy after Friday’s shootaround, before the Clips faced- and lost- to the Lakers that night. We talked about this season, this summer, and all challenges the former has brought and the latter presents.

Mike Dunleavy Interview: Part 1

Mike Dunleavy Interview: Part 2

SHLA: At this point in the season, and the way things have gone, what are the goals? What are you trying to accomplish?

Mike Dunleavy: Trying to win games, be as good as we can be. Unfortunately, what I’ve been hoping for all along, which was to get Elton back and have him play with Kaman, Corey, Al- Shaun wasn’t going to come back, but to have him play with as many guys as we could and see how we would do down the stretch. We knew we had a monster schedule down the stretch of all the top teams, but for our fans and for everybody else, if we can come in and knock a few guys off we’d get a glimpse of what our potential is. Unfortunately we take one step forward- (Elton) comes back- then Kaman and Maggette both go down. So you take two steps backward.

So right now, it’s working (Elton) into better condition, get better play, and it gets better all the time, but when you’re coming back from an injury (as long as he’s been out), it’s never going to be a straight line up…

…For us right now, it’s looking at different pieces, and trying to get guys to play well together.

SHLA: How much of the last week or so of this season is aimed at next year?

MD: It’s been that way for a while, as far as playing guys minutes. For instance, we’ve got a lot of guys who have moved up in the depth chart, some two spaces up, and have gotten a lot of playing time and a lot of experience to where they should gain confidence. For example, a guy like Josh Powell. He’s had some really good statistical nights and he’s given us some really good minutes, and that should give him confidence and the impetus to work hard on some things and areas that you see right now that maybe aren’t as consistent. You see that they’re there, but the consistency is not there, that can take him to the next level. So those are positives for us.

SHLA: When you plan for next year and using these games, do you do it with the idea that Shaun is back on the court, Elton and Corey are still here, you have the lottery pick, and so on?

MD: It is somewhat, but really it’s for the guys that are here, that are playing. It’s to try to find things and roles and situations that they can be successful and positive doing, so that they fit into the puzzle. We feel like, if we have all those guys back and we’re healthy, we’re a pretty good team. We’ve got good depth, we’ve got inside/outside game, and it becomes problematic for other teams playing us, as opposed to us playing them.

SHLA: I realize every offseason there’s a certain amount of uncertainty, but is there more now? You guys could have a full team, or nobody under contract.

MD: Our biggest concern right now is Shaun. His progress has been really good and solid. There’s no reason to think otherwise, but the fact is that he’s not back yet. At some point in time, we’ve got to see him play and perform. If he’s able to do that this summer for next season, I think we’re really good. So to me that’s our biggest question mark right now.

SHLA: I’m sure I’m not the only one who has asked this, and I’ll probably ask again myself. But are there any worries about planning for the offseason when you’re unsure about Elton and Corey?

MD: I really don’t worry about them that much, because of the whole landscape, and the fact is that we want them. Obviously nothing is for certain, but I think (with) percentages, if you said to me I had to place a bet today, I’d place the bet saying they’d both be back.

SHLA: What’s the first order of business this offseason?

MD: The first thing is going to be the draft, getting ready for the draft. Because again, it’s really important for us to make sure that we get a piece. A piece that we can plug in and help us somewhere.

SHLA: How much does Shaun’s health play into that?

MD: Of course it’ll be a part of the equation. No question.

SHLA: Would you still be in the market for a guard, even if he’s able to play?

MD: Obviously the more certain we are that he comes back, the more versatility we have with our pick. And even having said that, you can’t- you’re always going to have an override. The override is that if there’s an asset out there that makes sense, you’re always going to go for the best player, because you can turn the best player into whatever your need potentially is. So typically, that’s what it’s going to come down to.

SHLA: Next year, Portland should be improved with Greg Oden coming back and could make that jump. The Lakers will be very good. And on and on. It doesn’t get any easier in the Western Conference.

MD: No, it doesn’t.

SHLA: How good do you guys have to get? Where do you have to go just to get back into the mix, and how far away are you?

MD: I don’t know. Healthwise, if you tell me that we’re going to have a year health wise like San Antonio, Boston, Phoenix, Utah, one of those teams, I think we’re pretty good. If you tell me one of those guys are going to have a health year like we had, I think they’re going to be pretty bad. So a lot of it depends on health. But I think if we are healthy, and everyone else is healthy, than we’re in the mix. We have just as good a shot as anybody at making the playoffs.

SHLA: When you look at the players you have right now in terms of next season, what is it you’re hoping to see?

MD: How are you going to make us better for the future? That’s what it’s all about. This season’s been over from the standpoint of whether we’re going to make the playoffs or not, and the only thing that really matters is how are you going to get back into the mode of getting this team to reach potentially a championship level. And we’ve got some really good pieces in place. We’ve got some assets. We don’t have any bad contracts, from our standpoint. You can look around this league, and you can look at teams and say, “Wow, that’s a bad contract, that’s a bad contract, that’s a bad contract.” I don’t think we have any bad contracts. So as you’re looking at that it just comes down to potentially making moves and being ready to make moves when they present the opportunity. Of making sure you do all the work to make sure you come up with a good draft pick that’s going to be a piece that helps you.

SHLA: You said earlier that you believe, percentage wise, that Elton and Corey will be back. If they don’t, that opens up cap space. Are you doing the due diligence on that end, in regards to free agency.

MD: You cover the bases, always. The way I go is to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. But you need to understand what the situations are, and if there’s a possibility that something can go wrong, you’ve got to plan for it.

SHLA: And whether it’s one of those guys or both leaving, or that Elton could opt out and try to get a long term deal here. Is something you guys are thinking about?

MD: Sure. That’s a possibility.

SHLA: And as an organization, you’d be open to that?

MD: It’s a possibility for sure.

SHLA: To get back to that stability factor, is it hard to be in a position in trying to shape an organization, when there are so many questions? Coaches love to have certainty and control.

MD: You’d like to be able to know you have all the pieces in place and say, “Hey, we’re ready to go on to next year.” But that’s rarely the case. There’s always decisions to be made and work to be done. The guys that are out there doing the work, who are ready and understand the opportunities that present themselves to them, they’re the ones that are going to make progress.

SHLA: Do you feel as an organization that the momentum you had a couple seasons ago is gone? It was hurt last year, and obviously this year wasn’t good. Where is that momentum now, whether compared to the Lakers or the rest of the league?

MD: There’s no question, of course (it’s lessened). But it’s been through stuff we don’t have a lot of control over. People can say, “Wow, you don’t like to use injuries as an excuse,” but okay, great. Let me be Boston. I won’t use my injuries as an excuse. Or San Antonio, Utah, Phoenix. There’s a lot of other teams, the high end teams, who basically have had virtually no injuries all year long. We have probably 300 player games missed. The next nearest team is probably 220 or something. There’s a big gap between us and everybody else. All I’ve ever cared for is, hey, give me a healthy team, whatever that team is, and let us play that way. The other guy can be healthy, too, and I’ll take my chances.

SHLA: Is there anything you have to do in terms of changing how you coach when the expectations on a season change the way they have this year?

MD: Well, you’re always looking to change. You always have an open mind to change, in whatever you do. That’s one of the things I learned as a player and playing for the coaches that I played for, was that seriously to be open to suggestion. That’s one of the first things I ever say to my players. You’re on the floor, you’re in the battle. A lot of times, there are certain things that may occur to you that maybe in not apparent from the sidelines. There are no bad suggestions. Anything you say, I would never demean in any way. I look upon it as a positive.

So I always encourage guys to come up with ideas. And you get it, and sometimes they’re helpful and sometimes there are certain situations where you decide not to do it, but most of the time you go with it because the first order of business is if somebody believes in what they’re doing, they’re more likely to get it done.

SHLA: And I would imagine that this year, even that has been tougher to do because so many guys have been in and out of the lineup.

MD: It’s been tough. You’re trying to plug so many holes, so what happens with a lot of our games, we kind of game plan for somebody, and we’ll start out trying to put our best foot forward and to keep games where we need to keep them. But what’s happening a lot of times, we’ll get through the first quarter in pretty good shape, then part of the second, and then it starts wearing on us. You decide maybe, that this guy’s got it going good, and I usually take him out here for his rest. But if I do that, we could go down, and then there’s this guy who needs a rest but you keep him in longer, or someone who needs minutes- there are all kinds of variables. Ultimately what it comes down to is if the other guy is better than you, they can wear you down and at some point, they’re probably going to get you.

Like the last time we played the Lakers (a 119-82 loss on March 7), we were shorthanded like crazy again, and we’d play them fairly close until the end of that third quarter. We made some mistakes and they get into the open court, and they’d break it open.

SHLA: They’d push and you can’t push back.

MD: And we can’t push back. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of it. Most games for good teams, you’ve got to have three guys. Three guys have got to score for you pretty good to get the numbers you’re going to need. And the nights we get three guys scoring, we’ve won. It’s just the consistency of being able to get that, or having three guys even in the lineup who have the capability of putting up the kind of numbers that you need.

SHLA: How important is this summer for the culture of the franchise?

MD: This summer’s huge. Coming off the year we’ve had, hopefully our fans are savvy enough to understand some of the pieces that we have, and what we have in place asset wise, knock on wood, if we come back healthy, I think our fans will give us a chance and be behind us. It’s going to be important for us to play at that level that we’re capable of playing. That’s all I hope for, is that hey, our fans stick by us and give us a chance to understand that the team that we were a couple years ago when we were healthy, that’s the team that we can be.

SHLA: Is there a certain amount of sustained success the organization needs- four or five years or whatever- to give the franchise more credibility?

MD: I’m not worried about four or five years of anything. This year was not a successful year for us, and all I care about is next year. Next year being a successful year. If we’re healthy, the pieces we have in place age wise are good. We have a couple older, veteran guys, but for the most part the core of our stars have the ability to be together for four or five years. Some of them are young and coming up, and can grow, and they can be positives.

SHLA: So it’s more a situation where you put some seasons together, and hope in four or five years you look back and can say, “Five straight playoffs,” or whatever.

MD: Yeah. For us, it comes down to, at this point, just some kind of health. There haven’t been many teams that have missed major pieces the way we’ve missed. Look, if you take Tim Duncan out for the whole year, then pick another guy, whether it would be a Parker or Ginobili, how good are those guys going to be? Say Parker misses half the year, and Ginobili misses half the year. We’re missing, most nights, we’ve been missing $30 million in salary cap. Let me go into a game and handicap it, so I’m going to take $30 million in salary cap off your team. I’ll take my chances (with what I’ve got).

SHLA: Do people remember that? When you look around the league, is there a sense of awareness?

MD: No. People only know wins and losses. That’s what it comes down to, and that’s why you need savvy people with foresight in an organization to understand what’s going on, and can evaluate a situation based on the merit of it, as opposed to just numbers.

SHLA: Does a season like this hurt you more because you’re the Clippers and have more to overcome in terms of changing perceptions around the league? A losing season for the Clippers vs. a losing season for San Antonio, where most people would feel confident that they’d bounce back next year?

MD: Well, it can be. But heck, the Lakers caught a big break with Gasol, but prior to that they had people jumping off the ship. Over the last couple of years, there’s not even a question about that. At the beginning of the year, this year, with the whole “Kobe’s got to go” business, and everything along those lines, and the rift between Kobe and management versus Bynum- they had a whole lot going on. The only thing that cures all that is winning. The NBA, whatever the problems are, there’s only one thing that’s going to be a cure- winning’s going to be a cure. Everything else is not going to matter.

SHLA: And it’s the same for a team that has struggled historically as it is for a team that’s been good?

MD: We bounce back, we come back healthy next year, our fans will be here. They’re good fans. They’ll be here, and we’ll draw more (in).

Brian Kamenetzky hosts the Lakers Blog and Blue Notes: A Dodgers Blog for the LA Times.com. He’s a contributing writer to ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com, and can be heard regularly on the Steve Mason Show, on 710 ESPN radio in LA. Write him at bk@sportshubla.com.

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