Clippers preview: Sadly, Clippers are back to being ... the Clippers

Same ol' stinkin' Clippers.

There, I said it. After coming within a win of the Western Conference finals in 2005, the Clips went back to being L.A.'s other team last season, missing the playoffs and generally under-performing. Now that Elton Brand is going to be out until at least February after rupturing his Achilles tendon, and former future franchise point guard Shaun Livingston will be working to get back after his gruesome knee injury, there seems like there's no room to even hope.

The Clippers will have to win without Elton Brand for several months. (AP)

The Clippers are back to being an after-thought, dismissed like the little brother who is too immature to hang with the older kids. You know what would be nice, though? If said little brother would belie expectations and sucker punch those big kids when anyone least expects it.

As they stand right now, the Clippers are a cynic's dream. They're relying on eternal underachiever Tim Thomas to pick up the slack for Brand. Corey Maggette, at odds with Mike Dunleavy all last season, is set to be the leading scorer and play major minutes, which means Dunleavy will pull out the rest of his hair worrying about his defense. Sam Cassell is supposedly on his last legs, although you can't count out the fact that this is going to be a contract year and he always performs well in those. If he wants to hang around until he's 80, he'll show up. Chris Kaman, starting the first season of a lucrative contract he's hoping to live up to, showed up in shape, but it remains to be seen whether he can handle the extra touches he figures to get with Brand out. Oh, and Ruben Patterson landed there.

Like I said, a cynic's dream.

So, while it's easy to say that the Clippers are going to fade quietly into irrelevance, I'm rooting for them to prove everyone, including me, wrong. I'm a fan of humanity, and expecting L.A.'s other team to put its collective tail between its legs and accept failure is not something I'm entirely comfortable with.

You might be, though, and you would have every right to feel that way. Tim Thomas? Really?

How Thomas and Maggette fare will determine whether the Clippers have any chance at a playoff bid when and if Brand comes back, so that's a scary proposition. Cassell, even in a contract year, hasn't gotten any younger and was ineffective last season due to injury issues. Elgin Baylor has brought in Brevin Knight and Dan Dickau as reinforcements, but both are career backups.

As a result, expectations are down, which puts pressure on the remaining Clippers to man up. There are pieces there. Defensively, guys like Patterson and Quinton Ross should hold the fort down, but without a superstar it's going to take everyone giving it their all every night just to have a chance to win.

In the past, someone always lets the other down. Same ol' Clippers? It looks that way. Hopefully, they prove me wrong.