After a promising rookie season in which he started 44 games and won the slam dunk contest during All-Star weekend, Barry, a 6'6" shooting guard, didn't start a game last year. Fitch reduced his playing time from 24.0 minutes to 18.5 per game, and Barry's scoring average fell from 10.1 points to 7.5. "People who were outside the team were upset that I wasn't playing," he says. Some of those people were at the L.A. Memorial Sports Arena last March for a game against the Trail Blazers. When the Clippers fell behind by 25 points, many of the fans began chanting for Fitch to put Barry in the game, but Fitch ignored them, walking past Barry to insert Rodney Rogers and Lamond Murray instead. To hear Barry tell it, that kind of move didn't upset him at all. "This year, after summer league was over, Coach and I sat down and had a real long meeting," he says. "We're both on the same page."

Why was a long meeting necessary if they never had any problems with each other? Fitch has a succinct answer. "Don't start that," he says. "I never had any problems with Barry."

Maybe Fitch and Barry are just in a forgiving mood. After all, the Clippers did reach the playoffs last season for only the third time in their 13 years in Los Angeles, losing to the Jazz in the first round, and this season Barry is set to be L.A.'s starting shooting guard. The Clippers didn't re-sign Malik Sealy, who started 79 games at the position last year. Barry's expanded playing time should at least make Clippers fans happy. Though power forward Loy Vaught has had one first-rate season after another, Barry, with his gallery of highlight-film dunks and passes, is clearly the crowd favorite.

Barry will get help in the backcourt from point guard Darrick Martin and free-agent addition James Robinson, a good defender who can play both guard spots. Up front, forwards Vaught and Rogers are solid, but the Clippers will miss forward Bo Outlaw, a hard-nosed defender and rebounder who signed with the Magic as a free agent. Fitch hopes that first-round draft choice Maurice Taylor, a forward from Michigan, will help compensate for Outlaw's absence, but the biggest question mark for L.A. is at center. Stojko Vrankovic, a 7'2" bust with the Timberwolves last year, came to the Clippers in a trade for Stanley Roberts. He will compete with 7'3" Keith Closs, whom Los Angeles for some reason felt compelled to sign to a five-year deal that will pay him $8.5 million even though he wasn't drafted and he played with the Norwich Neptunes of the Atlantic Basketball Association last season. If Vrankovic or Closs can handle things at center, second-year forward Lorenzen Wright will be free to spend more time at his natural position, power forward.

The Clippers' 1997-98 record should be close to last year's 36-46, but that probably won't be good enough to get them the eighth and final playoff spot in the West as it did last season, not with the Spurs, injury riddled in '96-97, back at full strength. But maybe Barry, who will be a free agent after this year, will stay with L.A. even if it becomes a lottery team again. After all, he and Fitch have always had a close personal relationship.

—Phil Taylor