By Don MacLean
FOX Sports West and PRIME TICKET
MACLEAN ARCHIVE
Feb. 17, 2011
This is not Major League Baseball where every team gets an All-Star representative.
This is not a league where a .270 hitting utility player is the mandatory representative of the Kansas City Royals or the 4.00 era of a middle reliever gets selected off of the Pittsburgh Pirates. There are 12 players representing each of the 15-team conferences and not every team gets represented.
That is why it is so significant that Blake Griffin made the All-Star game as a member of the 21-35 Clippers.
We spent a lot of time on "Clippers Live" over the last month or so speculating on whether or not Griffin would make the NBA All-Star game. We knew his numbers were deserving, but we all know that there are other factors that go into it when trying to get voted in by the coaches and not the fans. Being a rookie is certainly a factor as not a lot of rookies make the All-Star game and team success plays a major part in it as well.
In 41 seasons with seven playoff appearances and a 1196-2108 overall record, the Clippers organization (Buffalo Braves/San Diego/LA Clippers) have had 18 All-Star selections by nine different players, highlighted by Bob Mikado's seven appearances from 1972-77 with the Braves, while Randy Smith made two appearances with Buffalo as well, in '76 and '78, where he won the All-Star game MVP.
The Clippers moved to San Diego the following season and had one All-Star in World B. Free in 1980. Since the move to Los Angeles in 1984-85, the Clippers have had eight appearances in the 27 years in L,A. Griffin, averaging 22.8 points and 12.6 rebounds per game, was selected this season marking back-to-back appearances by the Clippers as Chris Kaman made the team last season. Elton Brand qualified twice with the Clippers, in 2002 and 2006, and prior to that, you would have to go back another eight years to Danny Manning's back-to-back All-Star selections in 1993 and '94 and another seven on top of that to get to Norm Nixon (1985) and Marques Johnson (1986) representing the Clippers in consecutive seasons.
But, doesn't it seem like Griffin making it is different than when Brand and Kaman made it? Or Manning, Nixon and Johnson? There is just more to it. He has become a phenomenon worldwide and has single-handedly changed the culture at Clipper games, I've seen it firsthand. We sit outside of STAPLES Center getting ready to do "Clippers Live" and watch the fans enter the building, and in previous years, it would be fans wearing jerseys from other teams coming to watch that team play. Now, without a doubt, there are more Clipper jerseys than ever coming to watch them play. Inside the arena there is a certain energy I hadn't seen until this year and the majority of that is because of Griffin. Brand, Kaman and co. had nice years to make the All-Star game but this guy is changing a franchise.
This thing is getting turned around and even though the Clippers are only 21-35 on the season, you can tell by being around the organization that this guy is different and is going to change the perception of the franchise once they are able to build around Griffin and their young core. Griffin strikes me as the type of guy that is not going anywhere any time soon - contrary to what arrogant Lakers fans think - and that he is going to stick around and build this Clippers team into a contender at some point.
The Clippers are young and improving, but are still not in a playoff spot in the West. That was working against Griffin, but he has made such an unbelievable splash on the league this year and has been so consistent that as we got close to announcing the reserves, I found myself thinking "How could they NOT put him on the team?"
His selection is more significant than him just being picked by coaches, it is a statement of things to come, both for Griffin and the Clippers franchise.
