There's this guy who runs a laundromat in L.A., and he's a diehard Clippers fan. Last time I saw him, about a year ago, he was all revved up about what his team would be doing this season. He was washing and folding the pool towels for a nearby hotel to make extra cash. He was decked out in full Clippers' regalia -- a shooting shirt over a logo'ed T-shirt, I believe, along with regulation practice shorts, official NBA socks and, of course, top-shelf hoop shoes.

His bike, parked outside with a well-worn ball strapped to the back, was ready to roll over to Venice Beach after work.

	Elton Brand, left, and Donald Sterling both stand to make a lot of cash after this season.

When I tried to caution him about expecting too much from the Clippers he squinted at me, as if trying to figure out if he'd seen me somewhere before, then waved me off as just another joker who couldn't know his team as well as he did. This is it, he said. They're young and only going to get better. They'll keep this team together. I just know they will.

I appreciated the passion and, for his sake, hoped he was right.

Does that make me an enabler?

The moral of this story is that the NBA is Business First, Entertainment Second and a bastion for the Soul and Spirit of Basketball somewhere after that. The disenchanted believe that's a new development; the dirty little secret is that it's not. The earmarks of the cash-grab simply have become more blatantly apparent because the stakes are so much higher. Not to diss Larry Bird, Magic or the ol' bald guy in D.C., but how did doing a commercial ever make any of them a better player? And knowing firsthand how arduous a commercial shoot can be, it's reasonable to believe that doing a commercial, in some small way, affected their ability to compete. So if three of the game's greatest competitors compromised themselves, should we really be alarmed that anybody else has?

The league drug-enforcement rules, the structure of the salary cap and the tradeoff of training-camp practice for more playoff games are only the most recent examples that both sides of the equation (players and owners) put the bottom line just a little higher than the quality of their work, but I'm guessing those subjects are just a little too starchy to carry your attention to the bottom of this page.

So instead let's take a living, breathing and forehead-pounding subject -- the 2002-2003 Clippers -- as the latest and greatest proof that competing for the sake of competing is about as quaint as you can get outside of Ye Olde Sarsparilla Shoppe.

It's an old story with the Clippers, although this year's version actually has a few new twists, the biggest being that competing was supposed to be at least something. In previous years, the Clippers were a compendium of bona fide talent biding their time to go elsewhere and dregs that were happy to be in the league. Not exactly a winning combination. This year was supposed to be different because the talent was so rich and a good deal of it supposedly wanted to stay and dedicate themselves to changing the franchise's reputation. There was even speculation owner Donald Sterling was dedicated to that, too -- why else would he have VP of basketball operations Elgin Baylor go through all that trouble to build such a promising collection of talent?

OK, so the young talent just wanted to be assured first they would be paid handsomely for all that heavy lifting. Is that so wrong? Well, if it's all about winning and playing the game at the highest level, sure. But remember the mantra: business first, entertainment second, soul somewhere down the line.

Naturally, then, when the transformation became a little more arduous than advertised and no long-term financial assurances were being made, that all-for-one and one-for-all quickly fell to the wayside. Anyone who works for a living can hardly blame them. Whatever kind of collar you wear, if you believe your company doesn't plan to keep you around, chances are good you'll do, at best, exactly what your job requires you to do and not much more. Or you'll work very hard, but your energy will be directed toward projects that could make you look valuable to a prospective new employer. Designing a new widget without right of authorship or ownership? Working overtime with the chance of carpal tunnel syndrome but no chance of credit? I've never met anyone who was named Employee of the Month after receiving their two-weeks' notice. And just showing up and working hard without any other purpose or motive doesn't cut it in the NBA. Hoopin' for a living may look easy, but it's a cutthroat world chock-full of people with almost identical talents. And the margin between winning and losing is too thin, especially for a young team that has to live off playing with more energy than its opponent every night.

	So I don't blame the players. They were simply being human, reacting the way most of us would -- some just fake it better than others. Nor do I blame Baylor. He is the NBA's Sisyphus, drafting rather impressive talent -- aside from that Randy Woods brain cramp -- and then watching it all eventually head elsewhere.

So I don't blame the players. They were simply being human, reacting the way most of us would -- some just fake it better than others. Nor do I blame Baylor. He is the NBA's Sisyphus, drafting rather impressive talent -- aside from that Randy Woods brain cramp -- and then watching it all eventually head elsewhere. How can he stand it? Last I checked, Elgin has held his job since 1986. Only the Bulls' Jerry Krause has held his job longer. That's 17 years of cruising L.A. with a VP paycheck in his pocket. Makes for a pretty nice life. Remember the mantra: Business First, Entertainment Second, Soul ...

This, of course, is about the point in every Clippers discourse where Sterling gets hung in effigy or nailed to a cross or hung on a cross in effigy. Not here. This guy is a genius. Every few years he builds a team that shows some promise. That, combined with being in a city that offers a steady stream of clientele through the Anti-Laker Feeder Program -- an excellent reason not to move, ever -- he can sell enough seats and concessions and advertising to guarantee a profit. Thanks to Baylor's prowess at identifying young talent, Sterling can let his stars walk when they begin asking for salaries that might make them a financial risk. Word has it, having moved into the shiny new Staples Center and sold the promise of this year's Clippers but kept a rather low payroll, Sterling could clear as much as any other owner this season -- without making the playoffs. You don't think stockholders salivate over such brilliance? Don't forget the mantra: Business First, Entertainment Second, Soul ...

If you're looking for a place with its mantra differently ordered, try the laundromat: Soak, Spin, Dry.

Over and over again.

Ric Bucher covers the NBA for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at ric.bucher@espnmag.com. Also, send a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.