SHELBURNE: Clippers ride steady ship in sea of NBA draft madness

PLAYA VISTA - So the Clippers didn't screw it up after all.

Not that Mike Dunleavy & Co. was around back when Michael Olowokandi looked like a good idea back in 1998.

But with more than a month to think about things since winning the lottery and the chance to pick burly Oklahoma power forward Blake Griffin - also known as the only sure thing in this wacky NBA draft - any fan who has suffered through some of the team's misfortunes over the years was sweating it all the way up until NBA commissioner David Stern made it official about five minutes after the draft began Thursday evening.

The team's radio host last season on AM 710-KSPN, Dave Denholm worried over the air, "Don't say Hasheem Thabeet. Don't do it. Just make

all the way up until Stern took the stage.

Of course if Denholm and Clipper Nation, as they like to call themselves, had known that the Clippers already had the press release announcing Griffin's selection ready early in the day, a jersey with his name and future number (No. 32) printed and hanging in the team's trophy case at their headquarters here in Playa Vista up within a half-hour of making the pick, and official merchandise ready for purchase on clippersstore.com within the hour, they might have gotten a bit more sleep Wednesday night.

Short of the Cavaliers offering up LeBron James or Chicago floating last year's No. 1 overall pick, Derrick Rose, the Clippers were taking Griffin.

"I can't say whose names were mentioned, but no names were mentioned that even gave us pause to move this pick," said Dunleavy, the Clippers coach and general manager. "I don't want to talk about anyone else's players, but we feel like Blake is definitely a sure thing."

Dunleavy flat out said the team would pick Griffin within hours of winning the lottery May 19, to appease his restless fan base. But then the NBA got mad, because the league likes to preserve the mystery around the draft for ratings sake.

So the Clippers had to pull back a little and pretend they hadn't already decided that Griffin was the top player in this draft two years ago, when assistant GM Neil Olshey first saw him as a high schooler at the McDonald's All-American Game.

The charade was actually kind of funny, with Dunleavy and Olshey making jokes earlier in the week that Dunleavy had too much sangria in Barcelona the night the Clippers won the lottery and might've misspoke about the team's plans.

But the team's intentions were never in doubt.

Asked if was a good poker player, Olshey laughed.

"Very good," he said. "But in this business, where everybody else just lies to everybody, if you play honest cards, and you represent (pocket) Kings, everybody thinks you're bluffing.

"Although I doubt anyone thought we were bluffing."

The team's longtime public-relations maestro, Joe Safety, had gotten so into the method acting, he didn't even break character in the first news conference after the draft, referring to Griffin as "the selected player."

But these being the Clippers, and this being one of the wackiest offseason's in recent NBA history with every team looking to flip bad contracts and superstars like real estate speculators in the Inland Empire - really, New Jersey; Vince Carter and Ryan Anderson for Rafer Alston, Tony Battie and Courtney "missed layup" Lee? - something as minor as Griffin's unfortunately Lakers-colored purple shirt was enough to cause a mild panic in Clipperville.

"It was accidental," Griffin said of his draft day wardrobe on a conference call afterwards. "I didn't think about it until right before the draft. Somebody said next time you wear purple it will be a $5,000 fine."

Of course Griffin wasn't supposed to be sure he was going to be the Clippers choice until he actually heard his name (wink, wink), so what's purple got to do with it?

"I felt pretty solid," Griffin said about the Clippers intentions. "But in the back of my mind, I kept saying, 'Don't get too comfortable, because something could happen.'"

Whatever bit of doubt Griffin or Clipper Nation harbored quickly dissolved as soon as they picked him.

Now of course they have to figure out where to play him, with Zach Randolph, Marcus Camby and Chris Kaman still on the payroll.

Camby for one, said he wasn't worried.

"I think Blake is a tremendous young talent with a great future," Camby said in a text message. "I feel he can really help this team and organization."

After Griffin was off the board, the real intrigue began for everyone else.

Memphis wanted Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, but he didn't really want to play for the Grizzlies, so they took Thabeet. Oklahoma City wanted Arizona State guard James Harden with the third pick all along, pretended like it might take Rubio to see if anyone would trade with them, but ended up with the former Artesia High star after all.

Then came Sacramento, which flirted with UCLA's Jrue Holiday and Rubio a couple weeks ago, but picked Memphis' Tyreke Evans instead.

Minnesota went point guard crazy with the fifth (Rubio) and sixth (Syracuse's Jonny Flynn) picks, but probably isn't going to keep both.

Figure it's Rubio moving on to the highest bidder, since he's already declared Minnesota is "too cold" and his father was quoted in the Spanish newspaper Marca as saying that his son would stay in Europe rather than play for the Timberwolves.

The twitterati, Kevin Love, has yet to weigh in on that development.

But on the T-Wolves other draft-day decisions, he was quite twitterific: "what are we doing????????????????? omg we better trade....what are we doing??????????? i dont even know," Love tweeted after Minnesota took Ty Lawson at No. 18, its third point guard of the first round.

Fortunately, order was restored when Lawson was shipped to Denver for a future first-round pick.

"there you have it..." Love wrote, as the trade was reported on ESPN. "tweeting on emotion...i need to stay away from the update button."

After that, Love was back to rooting for players from his alma mater, consoling Holiday with a "there you go j'rue....gotta give love to my bruins," after the former Campbell Hall of North Hollywood star unexpectedly fell out of the lottery to the Sixers at No. 17.

Four picks later, when the New Orleans Hornets used the 21 st pick to make UCLA senior Darren Collison the new back-up to Chris Paul, Love exclaimed, "yesss darren.....good for you, GUMBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

Collison wasn't the only veteran college player to be picked higher than projected. Indiana snagged North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough at No. 13 even through it needed a point guard, and Chicago grabbed USC forward Taj Gibson with the No. 26 pick.

ramona.shelburne@dailynews.com