Only the Clippers, it seems, could be involved in a fight in which a fair outcome is unattainable, and a rooting interest is impossible.
It's Elgin Baylor suing Donald Sterling, a fallen general manager charging the falling owner of being racist and cheap, allegations that apparently occurred to Baylor only after working there for more than two decades.
One cannot pick sides, only emotions.
Sadness comes to mind.
How do you back an owner who is now fighting two lawsuits accusing him of racism?
But how do you support an employee who clearly tolerated the climate in which the racism allegations occurred?
It is certainly much easier to boo the loser Sterling than the legendary Baylor, but, in this case, it's hard to cheer either one.
"Elgin is old school," said his lawyer, Carl Douglas.
Perhaps, but in holding a Beverly Hills news conference Thursday to stick a flame under his old boss, Baylor's image is being remodeled by the hour.
You know what I wish?
I wish that when the Clippers stripped Baylor of his powers and offered him an ambassador job for less than half of his salary last summer, he would have simply walked quietly across town and joined the Lakers.
They would have hired him in a heartbeat. Baylor wouldn't have been given a fancy title or big office, but he could have finished his career as he started it, on the court in Lakers togs, helping teach some of the team's youngsters about Lakers toughness, just like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
It would have been a perfect ending for a wonderful 74-year-old story.
But, no. Baylor stalked away from the longest tenure of any active general manager -- 22 years -- and decided to get even.
He decided to file this lawsuit, so the Lakers couldn't hire him, and the Clippers couldn't properly honor him, and he's been forced to spend the last months in unwarranted obscurity while waiting for this week's bomb to drop.
One bang, really, and the rest is wispy, second-hand smoke.
The bang is, of course, race.
Sterling is accused of telling Baylor he wanted to fill his team with "poor black boys from the South and a white head coach."
During negotiations with former star Danny Manning, Sterling is also charged with saying, "I'm offering a lot of money for a poor black kid."
In summation, Baylor's lawyers accuse Sterling of having a "vision of a Southern plantation-type structure."
