LOB CITY LOS ANGELES -- Remember Lob City?
For a few years there, it was a fun place. DeAndre Jordan dunked on people's heads and made stank faces after. Jamal Crawford tossed sick alley-oops through his legs to Blake Griffin and everybody on the Clippers bench caught the holy ghost. Chris Paul did unmentionable things to big men like Marc Gasol.
I was standing in the parking lot outside the Clippers training facility at the exact moment Lob City began in December 2011. The trade for Paul was completed, Griffin and Jordan heard about it while attending a team charity event and made a giddy video about how great it was going to be. It went viral within minutes.
People were happier then. The players had fun. They smiled and laughed.
Then Steve Ballmer vanquished Donald Sterling from the land and promised one big, happy, crazy dance party.
These were supposed to be those days.
Instead, the Clippers have become one of the least likable teams in the NBA. They chirp at the referees constantly. They make some amazing stank faces. They lead the league in technical fouls (85) and strange media tiffs (see: Draymond Green-Doc Rivers-Dahntay Jones, Doc Rivers-Steve Kerr, Chris Paul-Pau Gasol-Female referee, Blake Griffin-Klay Thompson, etc.).
They just seem really angry all the time.
"I just think we're very serious," Rivers said. "They want to win and they don't care if you enjoy them."
Fair enough. This group didn't get past the second round of the playoffs when they were fun and loose, so why not try a serious mask and see if that helps get you over the hump?
"The first year I was here was totally different than it is now," Crawford said. "We used to talk about Lob City a lot more.
"But overall, as a group there's less joking around. We understand that these moments don't happen often and that we have to go for it as an organization."
OK, so serious faces on. No more viral videos or family picnics in the locker room after games. If that does the trick, if the Clippers get past the second round and actually contend for a title for the first time in franchise history, it'll all be worth it. Scowl now, smile later.
It may not be very fun to be around, but this seems to be their "process."
"That fun team got notoriety, but we weren't winning," Clippers forward Matt Barnes said. "I just think it was new -- we're getting highlights every night on 'SportsCenter' -- but then at the end of the season we're sitting at home."
This angry, gritty stuff has been rough on the TV ratings. According to Nielsen, Clippers broadcasts on Fox Sports are off 13 percent from this point last season. Even more telling -- in a year in which the Lakers are historically bad and generally unwatchable (they're off 25 percent from last season on Time Warner Cable SportsNet) -- the Lakers still almost double (1.95) the Clippers ratings (1.10).
Los Angeles was ripe for the taking with the Lakers careening off a cliff and so far, the Clippers haven't been able to seize anything.
In a year they have gone from being America's team after the Donald Sterling tapes were aired in April 2014 to the angry, petulant kid people have a hard time liking.
"There's no more sympathy," DeAndre Jordan said. "That situation is over."
If anything, Jordan seemed to enjoy the villain tag.
"I don't know why people don't like us," he said. "We haven't won s--- so it's not like we're the ones with the target on our back. Usually it's like San Antonio, the defending champs.
"But it's cool. Whatever. People don't have to like us. We embrace it."
There's no way to know whether looseness is what the Clippers had to change in order to get over the hump in the playoffs and pay off the promise and potential of Lob City. Maybe they'll try the serious look this year and come away feeling like they lost something.
But they were probably going to change anyway. Young teams grow up. Both Griffin and Jordan are gym rats with a perfectionist bent so it's not a surprise they'd change over time.
A lot of it, though, is the sting of how last season ended. The Clippers still aren't over it. There's a sense in that locker room that something was taken from them last year and that Sterling took away a golden chance they might never get back. That's where the anger comes from.
"It still feels pretty fresh," Clippers guard JJ Redick said. "It dragged on a while. And when it happened -- the timing of it -- it created a wound during that playoff time.
"That was one of the more disappointing playoff losses that we've had. I kind of always think of that when I think of the playoffs."
People don't really talk about Donald Sterling or V. Stiviano anymore. There are little reminders, though. Shelly Sterling sits courtside in the seats she negotiated in the sale of the team. One game this season, she brought former president Andy Roeser as her guest. Stiviano posts strange Instagram messages. Shelly Sterling is still suing her.
But the whole affair was so all-consuming, so noxious, so draining for all of them, it's almost like it's been whitewashed. Bring up any of their names and conversations end quickly. Stiviano might as well be Octomom. When the country is done with a story like that, it's really done.
The Clippers never fully dealt with their anger, though. They just went home for the summer, came back to training camp and started a new season.
Now they've finally arrived back at the moment when they had their psychic break last year. And despite the soft TV ratings and villain tags, they have the kind of team that could win something this year.
The Clippers lead the league in offensive efficiency (110 points per 100 possessions) and have the second-best point differential with plus-6.5. They're 18-7 since the All-Star break despite playing without Griffin and Crawford for long stretches. They've also won 11 of their last 12 games. If they can beat Memphis on Saturday night at Staples Center, they have a real shot at moving up to the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference.
"I think everybody is in a different point in their career," Redick said. "DJ, Blake and CP -- they're maturing to the point where it doesn't matter as much what people write about them or what people feel about them.
"So you ask yourself, 'What else is there?' And the answer is, 'There's winning. That's all I gotta do.'"
Steve Ballmer's dance party never happened. Well, with anyone else besides Ballmer dancing, that is. The Golden State Warriors have become the NBA's fun team. The Clippers are their heel.
Still, Lob City is under there somewhere. But this is the part where they can do something to get back what they feel was taken from them last year.
"We all know we're going to be judged on our postseason success," Crawford said. "We've kind of graduated to that."