It’s beyond clichéd to suggest that nobody in Los Angeles is actually from Los Angeles, but the city does attract its fair share of interlopers hoping to use the burgh’s facilities to make it in their chosen field.
Along the same lines sit the Los Angeles Clippers, a hopeful championship contender that you can actually root for without feeling like a sellout in a post-Sterling world. It costs far less to see Clippers games than it does Lakers contests, stars Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan have ingratiated themselves with the area’s comedy community, Chris Paul is in a trillion commercials … and the Clippers actually win games.
Not every game, as the team’s slow 5-4 start has many worried their upstart pick for Western Conference champions may not pan out. And apparently, in the team’s nationally televised contest against the visiting Chicago Bulls on Monday evening, displaced Chicagoans (or out and out California-bred Bulls fans) were in full force, rendering the Clippers’ home court advantage somewhat meaningless.
Don’t think the players didn’t notice:
Dan Woike at the Press Enterprise even went as far as relaying that the remaining Bulls fans gave their team a standing ovation as the final seconds ticked off of a 105-89 loss. I don’t recall as much, but then again this displaced Chicagoan was watching the game with a fever and clogged ears.
The Bulls used to routinely draw half-and-half crowds while on the road during the Michael Jordan era, but even though many picked this Chicago squad to represent the East in this year’s NBA Finals, they don’t have nearly the same draw. The team’s two most popular performers, Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol, even sat out the contest due to a sore hamstring and calf.
The cheers piled on, though, as Jimmy Butler continued his hot start to the season and Taj Gibson more than ably replaced Gasol’s typical production. Chicago’s ball movement was instrumental in coming back from a 14-point deficit of its own, and a recovering Joakim Noah came through with what was easily his spryest performance of the season.
The Clippers, meanwhile, broke down. Bad decision making on offense, poor shooting, and lacking defensive quickness allowed Chicago to more than double up the Clippers in the third quarter, and by the end of the contest the Clipper fans had just about had it.
That said, five years ago there weren’t a whole hell of a lot of Clippers fans.
There are plenty of diehards out there, we’re not dismissing that, but by and large Clipper fandom is always going to be a fly by night thing. It’s always going to depend on who is in town, what the ticket costs are, and if the team is successful. Even the most notable of Clipper season ticket holders aren’t rooting for the team they grew up watching at home, and the most prominent longtime hometown Clipper writer himself is a transplant from Georgia.
That’s just how it’s going to be, regardless of where the Lakers are at. When you toss a very good team from a very large city up against a lacking Clipper performance, this is what it’s going to sound like.
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from Yahoo Sports http://ift.tt/1wTSKmv
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