Dunleavy Awarded $13 Million From Clippers

An arbitrator has awarded former Los Angeles Clippers head coach Mike Dunleavy $13 million. Dunleavy also served as the team's general manager during his tenure.

In a move typical of the Clippers and owner Donald Sterling, the Clippers stopped paying Dunleavy after they fired him last March. He had been owed $6.75 million on the contract, $1.35 million for the remainder of the 2009-10 season and $5.4 million for the season just completed.

Finally Sterling gets his comeuppance. After years of being notoriously cheap, he gets told to cough up $13 million. Of course this isn't the first time that Sterling quit paying an employee. He had a similar suit against former coach Bill Fitch, saying he hadn't been trying to get another job. He also had a wrongful termination suit, filed by former GM Elgin Baylor, rejected by a Los Angeles jury. Is he an NBA owner or Scrooge McDuck.

Dunleavy's attorney, Miles Clement seemed happy with the outcome of the case. "It was a good day", said Clements. Ice Cube couldnt've said it better.

Of course the firm handling the case for the Clippers didn't seem too enthused with the decision.

"We do not agree with the arbitrator's decision," said Clippers general counsel Robert H. Platt, a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips. "We intend to review the decision carefully and explore the team's various options."


The Clippers and Sterling need to get over it and pony up that $13 million to Dunleavy.
    

Mo Williams Calls Derek Fisher Hines Ward Of The NBA

Call me out for this one. I guess I haven't paid much attention to Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher has done over the years. He's made big shots and has been a solid player, but I've never fashioned him as a dirty player.

Don't say that to Los Angeles Clipper guard Mo Williams. After being downed by the Lakers, again, 112-104, Williams called the Laker guard the Hines Ward of the NBA.

That came about because of center Chris Kaman's ejection with 28.8 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Kaman and Fisher collided on a screen near the three-point line, and Kaman ended up pointing angrily at Fisher, motioning for him to meet in the hallway after the game. Who does Kaman think he is Rasheed Wallace?

"There was no reason for that," Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro said. "Chris was just setting a good screen, a legal screen. Fisher came up high with the elbow. So the NBA will look at it, and they'll make those decisions."

Phil Jackson disagreed with Del Negro's assessment of the play. "Fish doesn't take kindly to that…" he said.

Kaman took the wise man's way out by not talking about it at all. "I'll get myself in trouble if I talk about it. I'd rather not do it", Kaman said.

Williams took to the Twitter route to get his two cents in.

"If yall didn't know, D Fish is the Hines Ward of the NBA," wrote Williams. "I don't know if that's a compliment or not. But don't let that nice guy fool u."

I don't think that's a compliment. Ward was called one of the dirtiest players in the NFL.

















  

Tell Me Why Donald Sterling Is Heckling His Own Players

Happy times in Clipperland. The worse owner ever in professional sports Donald Sterling has taken to heckling and belittling his own players. Sterling is the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Why Sterling is doing that to his own players, only he knows and he's not saying anything. His main target has been big money point guard, Baron Davis. He's also thrown darts at center Chris Kaman. Kaman, who is sidelined right now, has found it amusing.

  "All kinds of stuff," Kaman said. "Some stuff like, 'Oh, dunk the ball.' He owns the team. What do you want me to say? He's my boss. He signs the check. He owns me."Not really, but you know what I'm saying. My rights to my basketball skills for five years."

Sterling would prefer not to pay Davis and has been reported as saying "he wants his money back." A league source says he wants to do it, but obviously can't do it.

Some within the organization aren't too thrilled. You can count me as an outsider who isn't either. Especially since this is a classic moment of the pot calling the kettle black.

Sterling has been known to be one of the cheapest owners in the NBA. Only a few years ago did he start trying to improve the product on the court. They never win and he won't sell the team. The Clippers are nothing more to him than something to improve his social standing. That way he can tell his high falutin buddies, "hey, I own an NBA team". Hell, former general manager Elgin Baylor took the brunt of the heat that should've been directed toward Sterling. Another thing, it's not like he's some kind of basketball savant.
He's probably never played, or even picked up a basketball. He probably didn't even know what one looked like until he owned the Clippers. Davis could probaly kick his ass in a game of 21with a peg leg and wooden arm.

He claims he wants the best for all his players when asked about heckling Davis. Fooled me. The guy is flat out cheap, just ask ex coach Paul Silas, whom he asked to tape players himself to cut costs. Better yet ask former tenants of his apartment buildings. Or a local lawyer who had to sue Sterling for fraud over a $1000 prize he won in a free throw shooting contest. Those were in the San Diego days. Google stories about the guy and you'll see why he has no reason whatsoever to run around heckling anyone.
  http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6435/donald-sterling-one-creepy-story-after-another
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4187729

Another Clipper goes down

Los Angeles Clipper guard Eric Gordon has went down with a groin injury.Once again another Clipper bites the dust with an injury.Like I mentioned in another post, the Clippers are a historically bad  franchise.They're also snakebit by having key players injured then leave when their contracts are done.

He won't be flying this high for the time being.

Team owners need to insure a better product

A lot of the sports team owners treat their teams as a hobby or something that they can make money from, neglecting the product on the field or arena. There are some that do care, but they go about trying to build a winner the wrong way. Another blog that i follow, Explode In Sports, touched upon this subject last week.
  Some owners just don't care and some are too power hungry to stay out of their own way. Take a look at Al Davis of the Oakland  Raiders. Anyone he hires is a puppet. It's almost like a shadow government out there in Oakland. If you don't agree with big Al you're out. Ask Lane Kiffin about that. Donald Sterling of the Los Angeles Clippers really has no clue to what he's doing with his team. Dan Snyder treats his like a fantasy league team. They need to pay more attention to what's being done on the field or court to build a winner. In these tough economic times, true sports fans don't have money to throw around to attend a game, let alone watch a lousy team. My home team, the Detroit Lions were blacked out for the second time this season for that fact alone. In the past Lions fans have always supported the team, even though a majority of the time the team was plain bad. Nowdays, those same people can't go to the game and they won't go because the team is so bad. Everyone around the league says William Clay Ford is a great owner. I'm not privy to that, but the guy is too loyal to people that shouldn't be running the operation.That's how Matt Millen got eight long years in the Motor City. I believe he wants a winner, but he doesn't know how to go about building a winner. As much as i can't stand the Yankees, the ownership there does care about putting a winner on the field. They spend a lot of money on free agents and all but they also have a top notch scouting department. Same with Jerry Jones. He will do anything to make the Dallas Cowboys a winner. There are some owners that get criticized for spending a lot, but those are the ones that do it the right way. Owners like the aformentioned Snyder get it wrong. I know we're in a tough economic climate right now and you have to watch the bottom line but give us true sports fans something to cheer about. There are some that use sports as an outlet for the harsh realities of life and just want to be part of something positive.    

Los Angeles Clippers. Snakebit or just a bad organization?

Once again the Los Angeles Clippers have been snakebitten, spit in the face by the basketball gods. The top overall draft pick Blake Griffin, gone for about two months. Honestly i'm one of the few who for some odd reason has a fascination with the Clippers.I don't knbow why i just have something for the downtrodden in sports. I know, they've botched nearly every personnel move in franchise history. With them it seems like a bad horror movie, when someone says "when you go there you become one of them".It's not that all the players happened to be bad players, its that they made bad deals or players got hurt. There was the Moses Malone deal back in 1976. The selling of Bob McAdoo, the trading of Marques Johnson, which came back to haunt them since they dealt for him after his best days in Milwaukee to Danny Manning blowing out his knee, Danny Ferry forcing his way out of town, Shaun Livingston mangling his leg, and now this. At least they parlayed Ferry into two number one picks and Ron Harper, but he had to go ahead and get hurt.Then Harper said playing for the Clippers was worse than being in prison. The Clips had a few playoff seasons during the 90's and earlier this decade, but bad luck has once again reared its ugly head with the Blake Griffin injury and then i hear in the season opener last night that baron Davis is basically playing one one good leg. I thought this team had a chance to make some regular season noise in the Western Conference, but i don't think they can withstand injuries of any sort. The season's still young and maybe they can actually get it together. They do have Mike Dunleavy as coach so anything's possible. If you want to know more about the Clippers franchise run of bad luck click on the Bill Simmons article he wrote about this back in July. It's downright funny how he breaks all this down.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090624&sportCat=nba