High expectations can be dangerous and that certainly was the case entering this season. The team had added a two-time All-Star in Baron Davis and a former Defensive Player of the Year in Marcus Camby. They also grabbed a potential Rookie of the Year candidate in Eric Gordon with the seventh pick in the June Draft. Chris Kaman, Al Thornton, Cat Mobley and Tim Thomas were valued returning players and newcomers Ricky Davis, Jason Hart, Brian Skinner and Steve Novak provided depth at every position. Add promising second round picks DeAndre Jordan and Mike Taylor to the mix and all the bases looked to be covered. Looking at it on paper, it still looks good.

The injuries started in the preseason with Baron, Camby, Thomas and Gordon all missing valuable time. The disjointed roster was clearly not ready for the regular season opener on October 29th. They’d start with six straight losses. It is a start from which they’d never be able to recover. One player would come back and another would go down and so it went. Kaman’s excellent start was nullified by a painful injury to the arch on his left foot. He’d averaged an impressive double-double and dominated often as in his 25-point, 14-rebound game resulting in a 108-88 win over the Thunder in Oklahoma City on November 19th. Kaman would miss 48 games with the injury. He went down right after a bold early season trade that sent Mobley and Thomas to the New York Knicks in exchange for high scoring Zach Randolph and the versatile Mardy Collins. Coach / GM Mike Dunleavy salivated at the thought of rotating Kaman, Camby and Randolph at center and power forward. The experiment lasted for the first quarter of a game against Denver on November 26th. Kaman played the first 12 minutes but did not return until March 10th.

And so it went. Baron Davis, Ricky Davis, Marcus Camby, Zach Randolph, Mardy Collins and Mike Taylor all missed significant stretches of play because of assorted injuries.

Still, we’d see glimpses of what might have been and what could still be in the future. The best weekend of the season was a Friday and Saturday in mid-December. Friday night in Portland, the Clippers scored a thrilling 120-112 double overtime win over the Trail Blazers. Steve Blake opened the door by uncharacteristically missing three key fourth quarter free throws and Baron Davis drilled a game-saving 3-pointer to force the OT. It was a “homecoming” game for Zach Randolph and he responded with 38 points, while Baron did all the heavy-lifting and made the late game hero shots.

The team had a quick turn-around with a Saturday night home date against powerful Houston. After a tightly contested first half, the Clippers dominated the second half with a smothering defense. Zach scored 30 and the Clippers won easily, 95-82. That was three wins in four tries and they’d make it four out of five with a 98-88 win over Oklahoma City three nights later. It was easily the team’s best stretch of basketball during their frustrating season. Randolph, Davis and Camby were playing super and young Eric Gordon was coming on strong since being handed the starting job at shooting guard in the absence of Mobley.

Sadly, oddly, inexplicably, after an overtime road loss at Chicago and a double OT road win at Indiana, the wheels fell off the Clippers express. Their fun-run of five wins in seven games (three of the wins over playoff contenders) was over. The 12-game losing streak that followed as the calendar flipped from 2008 to 2009, spelled the end to any thoughts of the playoffs.

The New York Knicks provided some memorable moments in their two meetings with the Clippers. The two games were virtual mirror images of each other. The Clips cored a 128-124 overtime win in Los Angeles on February 11th, and then a 140-135 OT win at Madison Square Garden in New York. It was a rookie who’d lead both wins: Gordon scored 30 in L.A. and Taylor exploded for a career-high 35 in New York. Both overtime periods were set up by a ghoulish “taunting” technical on Knicks forward Al Harrington, who celebrated with too much exuberance after slam dunks at almost the exact same time of the game with the exact same lead. The technical foul shots gave the Clippers the chance they needed in the final seconds of regulation to tie the score and force the extra period. They were the team’s two highest scoring games of the season.

Sweet shooting Steve Novak provided another memorable highlight when he fired a 3-point buzzer-beater to defeat the New Jersey Nets at STAPLES Center on March 15th. The Clippers won it 107-105.

The Win of the Year was clearly on February 25th vs. the Boston Celtics. Almost 19,000 fans showed up at STAPLES Center to check out the Clippers and the defending NBA Champions. Al Thornton sat out with a sore foot, Gordon scored only four points before leaving the game with a bruised shoulder, Kaman was yet to return, still the Clippers battled Boston for a full 48-minutes, escaping with a thrilling and satisfying 93-91 victory. Randolph had another 30-point game and his former Knick teammate Mardy Collins was solid starting for Thornton with 12 points and some solid defense on Paul Pierce.

The team also scored impressive wins over the course of the season against the likes of Dallas, Atlanta, Milwaukee and Miami, but that Wednesday night in February against Boston is the win the players and the fans will remember for years to come.

Another top five lottery pick is the prize at season’s end. If Mike Dunleavy can draft as deftly in 2009 as he did in 2007 and 2008, you can count on at least one more rising young star in a Clippers uniform next season. It’s going to be an interesting summer. Stay tuned.