More Props to Ross

[DiamondM]

This is from Bill Simmons' (The Sports Guy) from his ESPN Page II NBA Preview column:

11. The Bizarro Clippers
Hanging out with some Clippers employees after Friday night's game, I worried aloud that the Clippers had too many quality guys. How would they juggle minutes for Brand, Kaman, Mobley, Cassell, Livingston, Thomas, Ross and Maggette, all of whom would be getting major time for any other team in the league? Could the vets check their egos at the door? Who would emerge as the crunch-time scorer? How would they integrate promising young players like James Singleton, Daniel Ewing and Paul Davis (a second-round steal last June)? Would those guys even get off the bench? And was Mike Dunleavy a good enough coach to pull the right strings and find all the right matchups? He certainly couldn't pull it off last spring, right? Sometimes it can be dangerous to have too many players -- it's almost like what happened to "Lost" in Season 3, when they've added so many new characters that they've stopped spending enough time with the ones that mattered. Over the past 20 years, only Isiah's Detroit teams managed to win a title with nine quality players and multiple crunch-time lineups, while dozens of other teams have tried and failed. It's like a parent not sticking with a set bedtime for their child every night -- sure, they can do it, but eventually there's going to be ramifications.



Anyway, I'm describing my "too many guys" theory, and one of the Clipper guys (Christian, in his 16th year with the Clips) interrupts me just to say, "Wow ... too many good guys? Now there's a problem we've never had before."



(An excellent point. My apologies, Clippers fans. You have the right to be excited about having too many good players. Hell, you have the right to be excited about any good players. But it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. I still think they're an Iverson trade waiting to happen. It's the logical move.)

[Swamp Gas]

TNT should start building commercials for its weekly Clippers game around The Q.