[excerpt] Welcome to the NBA's newest discount superstore, a place filled with pallets of hope and jumbo-size dreams.
The Clippers are now Sam's Club.
"I was told that if I can get the Clippers to the playoffs, I'd be the king of L.A.," said Sam Cassell, shaking his head. "I said, 'For real? Because that's one heck of a place to be king.' "
Welcome to a team that has shed a punch line and added a jab, a team beginning a season tonight with a mouthy leader who has challenged his teammates to forge a new identity that has nothing to do with an old joke.
The Clippers are now Sam's "I Am."
"I called a team meeting and told them, 'I don't care about the past, all that matters is this team, if we play hard, we have a chance, and if you don't feel that way, then you got to get out of here, now," Cassell explained.
Didn't that make some of the veterans mad?
"Elton Brand, our silent assassin, he stood up right in the middle of my talk and said the same thing," explained Cassell. "So I think everyone was cool."
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