Some excerpts that I found amusing, but I guess nothing should be surprising about the actions of Sterling
Stories about dodged financial obligations and baffling behavior dogged Sterling, publicly and behind the scenes. Before a game in Phoenix, according to former player personnel director Pete Babcock, a process server delivered papers to the Clippers’ locker room as coach Jim Lynam delivered his pregame speech.
“A hotel was suing Don and the Clippers for non-payment and said we were longer allowed to stay there,” Babcock said.
When the Clippers flew to Newark, N.J., the day of a game, Lawler said the team was abandoned at baggage claim. The bus scheduled to pick them up did not show, Lawler said, because the company had not been paid for a previous trip.
The group scrambled to secure taxi cabs, delaying the Clippers so much that they worried about missing tip-off.
“Everyone was running around like crazy,” Lawler said. “All sorts of goofy things like that happened way too often. The penny-pinching was debilitating to the franchise for sure.”
Union-Tribune columnist Nick Canepa, then a reporter covering the Clippers, obtained the team’s upcoming budget for the 1982-83 season. The story that ran in the Sept. 3, 1982, San Diego Tribune seemed outrageous enough to border on fiction.
The truth of it all only reinforced the outlandishness of the operation.
Where to start? How about Sterling slashing the previous season’s budget by $1.7 million, including a training camp free-fall from $52,504 one season to $120? Instead of working out in Yuma, Ariz., the plan moved the team to the neighboring North Island Naval Air Station.
Canepa’s story indicated the team hoped to force draft picks to pay their way to camp, a violation of league rules.
It wasn’t just money issues. Patricia Simmons, a former model who once worked for Playboy Clubs International, was promoted to vice president and assistant general manager with “no discernible basketball background.”
“Paul Silas (then the coach) came back from an exhibition deal in China and found his furniture and stuff in the hallway,” Canepa said. “They gave Patty Simmons his office.”
a sports columnist made a draft pick for the Clippers!
“(GM Ted Podleski), who quit drinking like six months before, went through a liter of wine as Sterling was talking,” Canepa said.
Canepa sat in with Silas during the 1982 Draft. The Clippers scooped up Cummings with the No. 2 overall pick and later grabbed Craig Hodges. When the seventh round arrived, Silas turned to Canepa.
The question stuns to this day.
“Silas said, ‘Hey, Nick, why don’t you make this pick?’ ” Canepa relayed. “I said, ‘OK, has Eddie Hughes been drafted?’ He was a point guard at Colorado State. When he played the Aztecs, he was one of the fastest players I’d ever seen. I drafted a player. It’s the best year I’ve ever spent in this business. You couldn’t make that stuff up.”
regarding being informed about the move from SD to LA
Most stunning, though, was the way news was relayed to Walton, still a San Diego icon despite his never-ending health hurdles with the Clippers.
How did he learn?
“From the newspaper,” Walton said. “There was no news from the front office, no news from the Clippers.”
