LOS ANGELES — Years before they stepped onto pristine basketball courts as millionaires practicing a game whose rhythms had long ago become a daily routine, the kids and teenagers who would one day become Clippers stood in the driveway of their childhood home. Or a community center. Or an outdoor park.
From a humble, homegrown start began a journey to the sport's highest level.
To watch the Clippers play basketball now is to see a group of players that must remember a small encyclopedia of information: an opponent's tendencies, the movements of their many plays, how to choose when to talk to a teammate delicately, or directly. What hasn't gotten lost amid all of that accumulated basketball knowledge are the memories of where their paths to the NBA started.
