On October 10, the LA Clippers will be welcomed home by a fan base that is more than ready for their return to STAPLES Center.
There’s a well known lyric to a song by the late, great Tom Petty that seems pretty applicable as fans of the LA Clippers count the days, or if you’re like me, the hours, until we might see Kawhi Leonard on our home court in a Clippers jersey:
“The waiting is the hardest part
Every day you see one more card
You take it on faith, you take it to the heart
The waiting is the hardest part.”
Just a few days from now, the Clippers come home from their Hawaii preseason training camp to take on the Denver Nuggets in their first home game since the rotation of the universe changed for the Clipper faithful on July 5, with the blockbuster acquisitions of Leonard and Paul George. The moments we have waited for are upon us.
Tom Petty wasn’t wrong. It seems like every day we see one more card — the videos of George and Leonard doing full practices, the unexpected and exciting solid play of our rookies in Hawaii, the rumors of how the shoulder surgery rehab is going and when George might be ready for the regular season. More is revealed every day.
And Clipper Nation definitely takes it to heart. While we wait, the hardest part, we open our hearts to what is possible. We look back at where the Clippers have been, and don’t get me wrong, it has been a great ride.
Even the seasons where the Clippers lost three out of four games, painful as they were at the time, were important parts of the road that got us to where we are today. True fans take it to heart, we feel for our team, we share heartbreak and unbridled joy with our fellow fans. We take every rise and fall personally. We invest our faith. And the journey to year 50 has been made sweeter along the way.
As our own Brian Cullen so eloquently wrote: “Enjoy what we have now because good god do we have some fun basketball to watch. Kick back and enjoy finally having a real-life, grown-ass, legitimate franchise to cheer for. The fun is only beginning in year 50.”
So welcome, one and all, LA Clippers lifers and bandwagon fans and everyone in between, to the wait. It’s just a few more days, really a blink of the eye in the grand scheme of this fifty year history. It may be the hardest part, but take it in faith, it will be worth the wait.