| 16 December 2011
Wandering the corridors of the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena during the UCLA Bruins defeat of Eastern Washington the other night brought back many fond memories spanning over 20 years.
The Sports Arena is one of my favorite venues, and not for its lovely décor.
For me it is the place where I knocked down a last-second, game-winning finger-roll from 12-feet to win the Southern California Regional Championship in high school. Versus Miles Simon and the Mater Dei Monarchs. Eat your heart out.
It is also the site of four consecutive wins during my collegiate basketball career at UCLA, versus the USC Trojans. Perhaps my fondest memory of this L.A. landmark was a 157-game stretch that spanned three seasons in the mid-80, when my father (Marques Johnson) was the starting small forward for the Los Angeles Clippers.
Don Chaney was the head coach, Elgin Baylor was the GM, some of my dads teammates included Norm Nixon, Jamaal Wilkes, Bill Walton, Derek Smith, Benoit Benjamin, Junior Bridgeman, Mike Woodson and Michael Cage.
I guess I was around eleven when the Bucks traded my dad in an a deal that brought the NBA All-Pro back to his hometown of Los Angeles. I was a little salty he wasn’t traded to the Lakers, but I figured the Clippers would do, it was still the NBA.
Those games at the Sports Arena were exciting, competitive and though the Clippers lost a majority of them, it was NBA action at it’s finest. I had the opportunity to rub elbows with NBA players, shag rebounds at practice, and chill with your favorite NBA icon in their locker-room after games.
Not a bad adolescence.
Since those days, the Clippers have always held a special place in my heart. Perennial doormats, I could relate to L.A.’s second squad much better than I could the Lakers.
The Lakers were like that perfect, goody two-shoes brother that many of us grew up with: great grades in high school, wonderful SAT scores, gets accepted into Northwestern or Yale. The Clippers were that troubled, sometimes off-track sibling: marginal test scores, forced to take the JC route, before finally getting his act straight.
These Clippers, by drafting Blake Griffin and then trading for Chris Paul, have finally gotten their act straight.
Paul is arguably the best point guard in the NBA, but more importantly, is a magnetic personality that transcends the sport and can potentially change the culture of that organization.
Griffin is a basketball freak of nature, ever improving, and easily the most exciting player in the NBA. While their owner, Donald T.Sterling, has been maligned and vilified deservedly or not, this franchise at some point, had to have some good fortune come their way.
Even the Cincinnati Reds won a championship under Marge Schott.
No, I’m not saying the addition of Paul makes the Clippers title contenders or even the best professional basketball team in Los Angeles. But like that brother that took a little longer to get his act together, these Clippers are on the fast-track to the big-time – becoming a relevant organization in the National Basketball Association.
Kris Johnson played forward for UCLA from 1994-1998 and was a freshman on the 1995 National Championship team, before playing professional basketball internationally for 7 seasons in Russia, Turkey, France, Lebanon, Qatar and China. After retiring from basketball, Kris served as radio host at Premiere Radio Networks and a field reporter and studio analyst for FoxSports.com. Today, he works as a consultant in developing the first iPad-based sports scouting/evaluation solutiondesigned for basketball coaches, scouts and talent evaluators. You can follow him on Twitter @PointForwardPro. Kris' column, "Confessions of a Basketball Vagabond" is featured often at Beyond the Beat.
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