A Happy Note : For a Change, Clipper Season Ends Without Tales of What Might Have Been

Set against the surreal backdrop of armed National Guardsmen blanketing the Sports Arena court and walkways with cots and sleeping bags, the Clippers completed a most unusual season Tuesday with their final team meeting.

A season that started with trademark underachievement and ended in the franchise’s first playoff berth in 16 years, and eventually the Game 5 defeat Monday night at Utah, saved its strangest sight for last. No real business took place, save the dividing of playoff shares, so Coach Larry Brown and his staff used the occasion to thank the players for their work.

“The sun even came up this morning,” Brown said later.

In the end, 1991-92 provided something of a new day for the entire organization. By all indications, the Clippers’ reputation, once as bad as any in professional sports, has taken a permanent turn for the better.

Winning had a lot to do with it, but what went on behind the scenes might have meant more to the players, who responded with the third-winningest season in franchise history at 45-37.

Owner Donald T. Sterling sprang for a chartered plane for trips, and the Clippers had a 16-25 record away from the Sports Arena, a Los Angeles- and San Diego-era record. Training camp was moved out of the smog and heat of Pomona to seaside La Jolla, a move players applauded. A full-time massage therapist was added to the payroll, and trainer Keith Jones had a budget that ranks among the top three or four in the league.

The capper, though, was Sunday’s move of the Sports Arena floor to the Anaheim Convention Center for Game 4 against Utah in an attempt to make things as much like normal as possible.

Said Doc Rivers, critical of the team’s image during his training camp holdout after having been traded by Atlanta: “Once I got here, I was very pleasantly surprised. As far as taking care of the players, it was the best situation I’ve ever been in.”

Now the Clippers have to build on it. They head into the off-season still hoping to add a guard, which is no different from this time a year ago. The change is that they are no longer smitten with Dallas’ Derek Harper, the former No. 1 target who will be 31 by the start of next season.

Now atop the wish list is Pooh Richardson of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Clipper officials realize that it will be difficult to pry the former UCLA star away from Minnesota because they don’t have a point guard to send in return. Rivers won’t do because these are the final few seasons of his career, and the Timberwolves, a young, building team, have said they have little interest in Gary Grant.

The other problem is that Minnesota will draft no worse than fourth and has the best chance at going first. That means that even if the Timberwolves don’t get Shaquille O’Neal of Louisiana State, they stand a good chance of filling their No. 1 need, a power forward, by taking Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown or Christian Laettner of Duke. If that happens, their longstanding interest in Clipper backup Loy Vaught will drop considerably.

General Manager Elgin Baylor was noncommittal Tuesday about Clipper plans, although he did say that the club’s second-half success makes it less likely that the core will be broken up.

“You’d like to keep the people who made all this possible and just add on,” Baylor said. “But if a big player becomes available, someone who might make a big impact, you certainly have to look at it.”

The Clippers had a 25-15 record under Brown, 23-12 during the regular season and 2-3 in the playoffs.

“I’m really proud of the team,” he said. “They far exceeded any expectations I had. I was apprehensive, coming in at mid-season and replacing someone (Mike Schuler) I had a great deal of respect for. But I was led to believe that it would be a benefit in evaluating the talent. And it did help. I learned a lot about what we have.

“They were a lot of fun to coach. They probably played as hard as any team I’ve coached, and I’ve coached a lot of teams that have played hard.”

The Denver Nuggets requested and received permission from the Clippers to interview Mack Calvin for their vacant coaching job.

Calvin, a Clipper assistant the last two seasons, plans to be in Denver within a couple days as one of the candidates to succeed the fired Paul Westhead. Calvin spent parts of three seasons as a player with the Nuggets in the 1970s.

The most pressing matter for the Clippers is a new contract for Charles Smith, due to become a restricted free agent this summer.

“It obviously could have been done sooner, but I guess for whatever reasons it wasn’t,” he said. “I’m not going to sweat it.” Smith said his preference is to remain with the Clippers.

LeRon Ellis also will be a restricted free agent, giving the team the right of first refusal, and Danny Young will become an unrestricted free agent.

The Clippers have an option on James Edwards for next season and Edwards has a buyout clause, but he says he wants to stay.

It would be a surprise if the Clippers let him go because finding a better backup center would take some doing.

Danny Manning averaged 22.6 points and 5.6 rebounds in his best pro season. He shot 56.8% in the five-game Utah series.