Let me start off by saying that i had a blast. The guys I were with made the experience that much better. I am a rookie basketball fan. I loved playing growing up but never devoted myself to the NBA like I have the NFL and MLB.
I know important players and stuff but could not tell you the starting line-up of every team like I almost can for baseball and football. This being said I am slowly becoming a force in Clipper Nation.
I drove there taking about an hour and forty five minutes in what mapquest called an hour long drive. Los Angeles traffic and Southern California traffic is horrendous. I found a nice parking garage for only five dollars which is an amazing bargain considering everything else was going for about twenty except a small, unlit lot that was going for ten but looked pretty shady to me.
So I enter the Staples Center and get to meet some of the Clippers Cheerleaders. I would later find out that they are called the Clippers Spirit, which is ironic. I took a picture with them, as you see from the article photo. And I noticed two things. One being that they were not very attractive. Two is that they looked like they were around 30 and had too much plastic surgery. They looked like after the game they would go work the street corner. If you know any Clippers Spirit Girls do not tell them I said that, just know it was from observations of the few I saw close up.
We get in and go to our seats in section 301 which is basically the nosebleeds. However, the Staples Center has great seating even at nosebleed I felt like I had an amazing seat. We were seated mid court in the nosebleeds which is a great seat.
We got there twenty minutes to tip off and there was basically no one there. Granted this was the Kings versus Clippers game so I shouldn't expect many fans but I was still taken aback by how little fans there were.I felt like a Florida Marlins fan. Okay maybe not that bad but still not many people
Let me taken an aside here tell you about my two friends who went with me. One is from Sac-Town (Sacrament for those who do not know) and is an avid Kings fan. He showed up in his Kings Jersey, granted it was of Peja Stojakovic but still. He high-fived a fellow Kings fan wearing a Mike Bibby jersey. This just tells you how far this franchise has fallen.
My other friend is an avid Jason Kidd fan. I am not really sure why but if I ask him I think his first response would be, "Because he is amazing, duh." But other than that does not align himself with an NBA franchise. He is from San Diego and is a Padres and Chargers fan. I tried to get him to join Clipper Nation with talks f the old Clippers in San Diego but he refused to jump on the team fandom, his loss.
And then there is me! I am a member of Clipper Nation and just this past year made my official dive into fandom. I had always followed with a bit of interest but never enough to call them "My Team" and really I think the only reason they are my team now is because I am sick of the Lakers here in Southern California. So I went for the other team in L.A. and am proud of it. I am not a band wagoner but am fully investing myself into this team. I went out of my way to get Clippers players in my only fantasy basketball team, which shows that I really do not care about winning.
So back to the event, the Clippers have a DJ named DJ Dense who does a great job working the fans. He is able to get cheers from the relatively small and uninspiring crowd. I was impressed with his ability to include the nosebleeders. He regularly gave shout outs to certain sections in the 300 levels. He was quite entertaining and I would say a good gimmick seeing as the Clippers really do not have a mascot.
The National Anthem was by far one of my favorite renditions ever. It was performed by about 30 African Orphans. I cannot remember the name of the country or group they were from but it was nice to see a change in the way it was performed. It was done in a tribal fashion and left tingles in my body. Although that happens often when listening to the song, I just love the National Anthem.
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