3 Questions:
– What’s wrong with Chris Kaman??? He’s been horrible.
– How did the team react to Baron’s “team meeting” after the Laker game?
– What was the mood in practice?
I’m just going to answer your first one since a couple others asked similar questions later on…
I don’t know that I’d agree Kaman has been “horrible.” To be honest, I don’t think it’s fair to judge him after exhibition and one regular season games when he’s constantly teaming with a new point guard, teammates, etc. And, he has yet to play with Marcus Camby. Basically, I think Chris started slowly and didn’t turn it on in the first couple of games, which he admitted to, but he’s had a couple decent games since. For Chris to be successful though, the Clippers have to have a consistent, concerted effort to feed him the ball in the low post and let him work. There has been no consistency to this first part of the season.
Humiliation can either break you down or it can make you stronger. What is the overall mindset of the team heading into Friday evening’s game?
As for the mood of the team after Wednesday’s drubbing and Baron’s team meeting, I’d say it was subdued. Hard to tell if it was head-between-the-tail subdued, or just we-got-embarrassed-on-national TV subdued. But my general experience has been that when an athlete is embarrassed, they generally tend to shut up and focus inward on the issues until they solve them. These guys get paid a lot of money, but they still have pride. And when that pride is undercut, by a loss like that, all attention is generally directed inward, rather than outward. Hence my perception that they were subdued in the locker room after the game and at practice on Thursday.
Does Camby have a target date for his return?
He said after Thursday’s practice that his target date is Monday. There is about a 2 percent chance he’d play before that, but he’s mentioned on more than one occasion how it would be tough to come back on a back-to-back, which the Clippers have Friday and Saturday.
