CLIPPERS SUMMER FAR FROM BUMMER.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

All right everyone, put your hands together for the Los Angeles Clippers!

Ah, come on, you can do this. Slap one hand into the other. There's nothing to it.

Forget that it's the most criticized sports team since the Greeks started grappling, baby, this is your Clippers summer of love.

They've made some smart moves. Yes, we're talking Clippers, team of Donald Sterling. The team whose best players spent most of their time counting the days to free agency. The joint ex-Clipper Ron Harper called hell.

Listen, it froze over! Clippers were willing to stay. Better than that, absolutely more stunning than that, Donald was willing to pay them to stay.

Not only that, they went out and got a real coach. And paid him big, too. Yeah, it took too long. Yeah, the process was unfair to interim coach Dennis Johnson. But ultimately, they got it right, and how many times has anyone been able to say that about the Clippers?

They signed Mike Dunleavy to a four-year deal for $10 million to coach. They matched Elton Brand, the one player they absolutely had to retain, committing $82 million. They matched Corey Maggette, an emerging star, for $42 million.

It's all been sort of lost this summer amid the Lakers signing a future Hall of Famer a day, Kobe Bryant's sexual-assault charge and the incredible shrinking Dodgers and Angels.

This all is unprecedented for the Clippers. They never have made such huge financial commitments to any player. And they made a genuine effort to sign point guard Gilbert Arenas before he became impatient waiting for them to re-sign Lamar Odom and took a slightly better offer from the Wizards.

So give it up for L.A.'s other NBA team. It could signal a true franchise identity crisis, or that Sterling just ran out of Wilshire Boulevard property to purchase, or that they just figured out how to get it right.

Odom remains a final, costly and risky decision. He's been plagued with drug and injury problems, and signing him to an expensive, multiple-year deal is a true gamble.

But he is so talented, so intriguing, he still is gaining interest from Miami and Denver. The Heat, which forced the Clippers' hand on Brand, is reportedly poised to offer the talented Odom six years for $65 million, which given his past two years (78 games total) seems amazing.

Yet if he gets it, expect the Clippers to match again.

I know you're struggling here, but we are talking the Los Angeles Clippers.

Sterling loves Odom. Has always been one of his favorites. Odom's mulling whether to accept a one-year offer from the Clippers, become a free agent again next year, and hope he is coming off a season like two years ago, when he led the team in scoring, rebounding, steals, blocks and minutes, and people were comparing him to the greats. He could parlay that into another $20 mil.

So they did not match on Andre Miller, the first player in franchise history they failed to match. Miller leaves the most mysterious player ever to play for the Clippers. He was a monumental disappointment. His play and added chemistry didn't deserve a $51 million match.

Then there's the puzzling Michael Olowokandi, a genuinely talented and confused 7-foot center. He could have signed for about $50 million with the Clippers a year ago. Instead, he rejected it and moaned about his contract during the season, became a locker-room problem, then signed for less than $15 million last month with the Timberwolves, an offer the Clippers still bettered.

Losing Olowokandi, assuming we're talking about a motivated player - big assumption - could prove difficult, what with the Clippers poised to play a rookie and 6-foot-10 Melvin Ely, who's not a true center and saw little playing time last year.

And despite the good moves, it could correctly be argued they're less talented than the team they had a year ago, when they won a whole 27 games. With the Clippers, it's always something.

But the three biggest reasons for their disappointing season last year were supposedly locker-room discontent, injuries and coaching.

The discontent stemmed from their failure to address contracts the previous season, a problem now corrected. They can't help but be healthier. And Dunleavy is a coach who can make them better.

I'm telling you, it's a golden era. Don't even mention that the NBA requires that a team's payroll be at least $32 million and they had to sign someone.

The Clippers re-signed the right players. They committed to huge salaries. They got a great coach.

Go ahead, try it. Put those hands together.

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Among the Clippers' unusually rational moves this summer was retaining star forward Elton Brand. Could it be a sign the franchise is turning the corner?

Edna T. Simpson/Daily News