And in most of these basketball operations, the patient has been terminal.

That's because the 74-year-old Baylor — whose status as one of the greatest players in league history can't be diminished by knuckleheads who focus on his long Clipper associations — has been obliged to preside over a franchise owned by Donald T. Sterling.

To their credit, most big media thinkers demanding a reason why the Clippers have bagged the NBA's third-worst record over the last 22 years have settled on Sterling. Amen, without a commitment to coughing up big loot for uniform-wearing employees, attempting to win at professional basketball seems impossible.

Until recently, Sterling had been remarkably frugal in these matters, his payroll threatening to challenge the league's league-minimum cap. That can be a damning pretext when the franchise you share the town (and later) the hallway with is the L.A. Lakers. The talking point frequently issued by lead Sterling lieutenant Andy Roeser had been "maximum contracts for maximum players."

From his vantage point in row 1 near the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena and Staples Center mid-court stripes, Sterling wasn't seeing max power dressed in Clipper white. For too long, this interpretation was correct. Even though Elgin had seized a reasonable share of emerging talent (Hersey Hawkins, Danny Manning and Charles Smith in the late '80s, for example), the Clips who escaped in free agency didn't exactly drag their new teams to glory.

As a former Clippers beat writer (a gig I often described as not unlike having the electric-chair beat), I was aware that many of what turned out to be personnel missteps were abetted by the franchise's head coaches.

That's where the Sterling influence really teamed up with his cheap player-hiring practices to sabotage any sharp decisions Elgin might have mustered. Based on the owner's commitment to minimal spending or simply bad decisions in hiring coaches, Baylor seemed unable to work with someone whose abilities he didn't believe in or (in many cases) respect.

Although I've for many years howled about how having superstar players has been a prerequisite for NBA success, hiring an astute coach is another fine move. Unfortunately for the Clippers, the parade of (mostly) weak hires usually inspired lousy rapport with the VP of basketball ops.

That's where Elgin often was at his worst. While playing alongside West with the Lakers, Baylor helped bridge the NBA gap between mechanical, structured basketball movement and the aerial ballet we often see today. This level of on-court achievement made it difficult for Elgin to accept what he perceived as tactical or talent-judging weaknesses in the coaches he needed to deal with. The lines of communication often were either severed or irreparably jammed.

A former Clippers insider once told me that during his brief stop as head coach of the New Orleans, Baylor encountered considerable interference from those above him on the franchise food chain. As a general manager, this interference influenced his method of avoiding player acquisitions that deviated from the coach's interests.

Several insiders associated with the franchise in '96 have said that then-coach Bill Fitch was adamant about not drafting a high-school kid when Bryant was on the board.

But as the years rolled on and the Clippers continued to roll over, Elgin didn't exactly defer to those along that coaching parade route. With a nice assist of input from his personnel staff, Baylor was even credited with a draft-night score in 2000, dealing for Corey Maggette and the rights to Keyon Dooling while selecting Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson.

It's too bad high-flying dunks weren't being rewarded with playoff invitations. That group was L.A.-caliber entertaining, but still found itself escorted to the fishing hole while other teams embarked on the playoff hunt.

News » Can't blame all of Clippers' woes on Elgin 2008-10-10
Can't blame all of Clippers' woes on Elgin 2008-10-10
It takes a village to raze an NBA franchise, but we're still not certain if the Los Angeles Clippers qualify as having been sufficiently built to require demolition. That hasn't prevented the barkers of basketball reporting from seeking a village idiot to salute. For about 22 years, a popular choice might have been Elgin Baylor, who on Tuesday was officially declared the former vice president in charge of basketball operations. Baylor's bad choices Elgin Baylor presided over 21 Clippers drafts with almost no success. Here are his eight worst picks as L.A.'s GM.