The Loss Generation

Free agency being what it is, though, most prospects can engineer an escape and return to a more competitive world with a portion of their self-esteem and earning power intact. (See Danny Manning, Loy Vaught.) For the players, the humiliation is only temporary. For the franchise, it is unending.

Since it now appears that the Clippers can never evolve into winners—they are steadfastly improvement-proof, to the point where their condition must be considered permanent (look at the numbers, man!)—it becomes important to assign meaning to such ongoing catastrophe. There's got to be meaning to a failure of such immensity, else this world would be too frightening to live in. So, consider this: The Clippers must lose so we can be reminded that there isn't always a light at the end of the tunnel, there isn't necessarily redemption and there might not be a next year.

It's a gloomy lesson, but if it prevents us from taking comfort in our calamity, from presuming success is the natural order of life, from counting on a cosmic corrective—well, then the Clippers have been instructive. Remember as you meander through your own life, your hand not quite on the wheel: It really can get worse than this.