Tour de LeBron: The Los Angeles Clippers

Now that the Lakers and the Celtics have gone to the last seconds in the last minute of the last game and finally scratched and clawed and wheezed and battled to decide a champion, it's time for the really intense competition to begin.

Who gets LeBron James?

The LeBron Sweepstakes begin when the doors to free agency swing open on July 1. The two-time MVP will have a conga line of suitors winding from coast-to-coast.

The footlights of NewYork or the movie lights of L.A.? The salsa beat of Miami or the thundering Bulls hoofbeats of Chicago? The comfort of home in Cleveland or the mean streets of New Jersey? Fuhgeddaboutit.

Here's a tour of the prime spots where The King may end up.

This stop: the Los Angeles Clippers

Last year's No. 1 draft pick Blake Griffin is ready to make his belated debut and run at Rookie of the Year. Chris Kaman is coming off a season when he quietly averaged a near double-double. Baron Davis can still bring it when he's interested and Eric Gordon is on the rise.

Jack, Denzel, Sly, Dustin, Flea, Diddy. Where else but Hollywood do you get to slam dunk for the stars every night? And what would be more satisfying than storming into the Staples Center and stealing away the starring roles and the spotlight from Kobe Bryant and that other team?

Could there be a more formidable task in all of sports than making the Clippers relevant? It's a franchise that has won exactly one playoff series since 1976 -- when it was located in Buffalo.

He could join West, Baylor, Chamberlain, Magic, Kareem, Worthy, Shaq, Kobe as L.A. hoop legends. So what if they're Lakers? He'd get his own smog cloud on Mt. Olympus.

The Clippers are one of three teams -- along with Memphis and Charlotte -- to have never won an NBA Championship, conference championship or a division championship.

Would he really want to be the opening act for Kobe? And what about that Clippers Jinx?

After more than three decades on the West Coast as an afterthought, no team needs the attention and hype more than the Clippers. But even without LeBron, there seems to be something brewing with young talent that could get them back into the playoffs.

50 :1

Fran Blinebury has covered the NBA since 1977. You can e-mail him here and follow him on twitter.

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