Was it just barely two years ago when the Clippers were within grasp of going to the Western Conference finals? And who knows what could have happened if that had occurred.

The shambles of the 2007-2008 season make that glorious ride of 2005-2006 almost seem like a dream. Did it occur? Yes, it did but the Clippers this season resembled a train wreck.

Hope, probably false hope, was posed when star forward Elton Brand went down in August, with a ruptured left Achilles' tendon. The talk at that point was that if the Clippers could play close to .500 basketball up to the All-Star break, Brand and his fellow rehabilitating teammate, Shaun Livingston, would return to lead a second-half season charge to the playoffs.

Pipe dreams, they turned out to be. ...More