WASHINGTON -- In Houston, where Sam Cassell started his NBA career in 1993 by helping the Rockets win championships his first two seasons, it was Hakeem Olajuwon's team.
In Minnesota, where Cassell spent the previous two seasons and helped the Timberwolves reach the Western Conference finals for the first time in 2003-04, it was Kevin Garnett's team.
Now in Los Angeles, with the Clippers, it is finally Cassell's team.
"I was brought here for direction, for leadership, to help us win some games," Cassell said after the Clippers finished a rigorous practice yesterday at MCI Center, where they will play the unbeaten Washington Wizards (3-0) tonight. "We lost a lot of games down the stretch last year. We just didn't know how to win."
The early returns have been positive. Cassell scored 35 points in an opening-night victory in Seattle, including 15 in the fourth quarter, and helped the Clippers to subsequent home wins over Atlanta and Minnesota.
It marked the team's first 3-0 start in 20 years.
"We have a group of guys that are starting to understand how to win, to play harder, and we're doing that," said Cassell, who is averaging 17.5 points and a team-high 6.3 assists in 35.5 minutes a game.
Though his return to Minnesota Monday night was not successful - the Clippers lost for the first time this season and Cassell scored just 11 points on 3-of-10 shooting - the 35-year-old point guard from Dunbar has made an immediate impact on his new teammates and coach Mike Dunleavy.
Elton Brand, now in his fifth season with the Clippers and his seventh year in the NBA, knew Cassell only peripherally, mostly as an opponent who hit big shots and, on more than one occasion, had a big mouth that seemed never to stop talking trash after many of the 12,960 points he had scored.
Brand was not exactly thrilled about the trade that brought Cassell to the Clippers for point guard Marko Jaric and forward Lionel Chalmers last summer, mostly because Cassell didn't seem too excited about coming to a team that hadn't made the playoffs since 1996-97 and only three times since coming to Los Angeles in1984-85.
"The reports were that he really didn't want to be with the Clippers, and I thought that he was going to be a tough guy to be with," Brand said. "I don't know if it was holding out, something about his contract, but he's a great guy, a great teammate, a great friend. I love having him here. Things were misconstrued."
