End of the "Upside" Era....Well wishes to Shaun!

Shaun Livingston was born during my junior year in high school. The four year professional NBA player, who stands tall as a 6'8" pass-first point guard, was drafted with the #4 overall pick by the Clippers in the 2004 NBA Draft. Shaun was viewed by many experts as the draftee with the "most potential" and "highest upside". Clippers fans were excited to see that we had finally drafted our point guard of the future. We had a real superstar in the making.

Injury prone. Anyone who is a fan of the NBA shudders at this tag. Injury prone. After playing in only 91 games his first two seasons (out of a total of 164), Shaun was officially "injury prone". His lean framework was not handling the grind of an NBA season. In the 2006-07 season Shaun started to show some improvement. He was doing well playing bigger minutes. He was up to almost 30 minutes a game and was averaging 9.3 ppg and 5.1 assists. He was starting to look like he might fulfill his potential.

The injury. There is only one way to describe Shaun's injury on February 26, 2007 - devastating! For those of us at the game or watching it on TV it was horrific. There was no hard foul, no trip or stumble - just a complete failure of his knee in what was later learned in four major places. Livingston injured almost every part of his knee, tearing the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL), and the lateral meniscus, badly spraining his medial collateral ligament (MCL), and dislocating his patella and his tibia-femoral joint. It was devastating for Shaun, and was a dagger in the heart of every Clippers fan.

The comeback. Shaun has worked hard on coming back to full strength. He has now missed 1 1/2 seasons working on getting healthy. His rookie contract expired with no comeback yet. The Clippers have decided to give him up to the free agency, going in another direction with the signing of top point guard Baron Davis and backups Jason "White Chocolate" Williams, and Jason Hart. Shaun has been working out with Tim Grover at his facility in Chicago, one of the top conditioning and strengthening coaches and programs in the world for NBA players. His coaches there have said he is doing well and there is a good chance of him playing again. ESPN has reported that Minnesota, Portland and Miami have all watched him workout and are considering signing him to possibly a two year deal. There were rumors the Lakers and Golden State were also interested in Shaun as their backup point guard.

My rant. I am really surprised that the Clippers could not keep him for a minimum contract. It may be that Shaun did not want to stay and was not sure what his role would be with the Clippers long term. But, it is Clipper-karmatic (new word, patent pending), that our point guard of the future could now go explode on another team. It would be of Kabuki dramatic proportions to have the Lakers somehow realize that he would fit in perfectly with their lineup and see him go to our cross-locker room rivals and see him fulfill even a measure of his potential. Such is life in Clipper Nation.