If Blake Griffin is the main story, then Eric Gordon is the running subplot, George Costanza to Blake’s Jerry Seinfield. Had Blake Griffin not burst onto the Clipper scene this year, Gordon would have been the main story. However, Eric Gordon was never meant to be the main plot, but the strong subplot upon which the main narrative rests.

Ask a random basketball fan how good EJ is and they’ll probably tell you that he moderates Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith lovably well. It’s not from a lack of exposure, Eric plays on the same team as Blake Griffin who has forced many basketball fans into watching the Clippers, despite their meager record.  More...

Usually, we sophisticated NBA blogger types try to avoid superlatives, those words like “most” and “best” and “worst” that indicate the ultimate degree of something. Good writing and good analysis both favor the qualified over the absolute, the carefully parsed over a whitewashed generality. After all, the basketball blogosphere (at least as imagined by guys like John Hollinger, Henry Abbott, Bethlehem Shoals, K.A. et al) is supposed to offer a countermeasure to the mainstream sports-media hyperbole machine. One day the Butler Bulldogs are on the verge of being The Greatest Underdog Story Ever Told, and the next they are culpable participants in The Game So Ugly It Shamed Dr. Naismith and The Sport of Basketball Itself. But not over in this corner of the interwebs, where we putter along making reasonable arguments, trying, whenever possible, to stick to, and elucidate, the facts.  More...

Like some of you, I’m a Dodgers fan and in the last few days I couldn’t have been happier to find out that Bud Selig took over the financial operations for Frank McCourt and the Los Angeles Dodgers. For most Dodger fans, myself included, it was a long time coming. While McCourt has been at the helm of the Dodgers only two postseason series wins since the 1988 Wold Series, he has been a publicity joke with his divorce proceedings, which has cost him millions of dollars and marginalized the Dodgers. The mass dislike of McCourt stewardship of the Dodgers was galvanized by the way in which McCourt initially said that nothing could have prevented Bryan Stow’s Attendance is down, and Dodger Blogger Jon Weissman suspects that it’s a large scale, yet individually decided, form of protest. Outside of Dodgers’ Vice Chairman Steve Soboroff, you’d be hard pressed to find a McCourt fan. Selig acted swiftly, and some even think that this take-over isn’t just a time out for McCourt, but the end of the McCourt reign over the Dodgers. Buster Olney writes:  More...

In his first season as coach of the Clippers, you could say Vinny Del Negro was exactly what we expected him to be. His perceived ability to develop players and to “get” his team to play hard through the last whistle were the reasons the Clippers hired him over Dwane Casey, who came with high praise for his tactical acumen and leadership. The Clipper Organization believed in the results they saw from Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Taj Gibson under Del Negro in Chicago, and Neil Olshey said as much on the day they introduced him as coach: “We wanted someone who had a history of developing and being willing to play young players, which when you look at [the Bulls'] starting lineup, they certainly did [in Chicago].” As was the case in his last situation, it’s unclear just how much impact he had on the progress of his young players.  More...

Here is a broad grade report of the Clippers 2010-2011 season, which will be followed up by posts on individual players and coaches in the following weeks.

Blake Griffin: A-plus  More...