THIS JOB IS NO BLESSING, IT'S A DEATH SENTENCE.

Byline: Steve Dilbeck

There he stood, bless his innocent little soul, saying all the right things, all earnest and sincere, and absolutely doomed to fail.

It's hard not to feel some for Alvin Gentry, introduced Thursday at the Clippers' annual news conference to name a new coach.

He stood at the podium flanked by general manager Elgin Baylor, vice president Andy Roeser and some guy in a black hood with a very large ax.

Gentry seems well-meaning and eager to make his mark. Maybe he's a great coach, too, though it's almost guaranteed we'll never find out while he leads the Clippers.

``I have no doubt this is a golden opportunity for this franchise,'' Gentry said. ``The young players and what we have going for us here, we have a chance to really make this something special over the next couple of years, and something that can last a long time.''

See, naive to the core. The trouble with the Clippers is, the only thing that has lasted a long time is Donald Sterling.

That would be the owner of what Sports Illustrated so delicately labeled the worst franchise in professional sports.

Gentry looks at the team and sees the talented Lamar Odom, their three No. 1-draft picks - Darius Miles, Keyon Dooling and Quentin Richardson - this wealth of young ability, and gets all giddy.

P.T. Barnum warned you. Hey, every year the Clippers are full of young talent. Then as soon as they can become free agents, they get the hell out of Dodge.

Their record stinks every season, so they keep getting high draft picks to replenish their young talent, and apparently for Sterling, offer eternal hope.

Meanwhile, the team disappoints and the guy in the black hood gets to do his thing on the coach.

``This is a great day for me,'' said Gentry, not realizing his Clippers career had just peaked.

Coaches are supposedly hired to be fired, but the Clippers offer a temp service to make Kelly Girl envious. They're the first ones voted off the island, out of the house and into unemployment.

It's the merry-go-round that never ends, and now Gentry gets a couple of trips around.

He should know better, too. He was once an assistant here to Mike Schuler. You all remember Mike Schuler, of course.

The Clippers have a long history of recycling either formerly renowned coaches - Bill Fitch, Bob Weiss, Gene Shue, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Jack Ramsay (remarkably, Hubie Brown has never made the list; one of the great Clippers mysteries), or tabbing an eager assistant - Jim Lyman, Don Chaney, Paul Silas.

To the latter add Gentry, who had been hired to be an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs. This after two failed, if brief, efforts as a head coach at Miami and Detroit.

What almost every Clippers hire has in common?

Desperation.

The recycled guys want to make a few, last bucks. The assistants want to be NBA coaches so badly, they're willing to take a shot at the Clippers - a team with one winning season in their 16 years in Los Angeles. Are we sensing a slight pattern?

And how many more chances do you figure Gentry thought he had?

Gentry was asked if he didn't have friends warning him he'd be crazy to take the Clippers job. When Gentry said they all encouraged him, the questioner was left wondering if he had any friends.

The Clippers may always be young, but they've never had to be burped. Miles is 18, Dooling and Richardson both 20, and Odom is 21. Then there's third-year center Michael Olowokandi, whose basketball instincts are around 16.

News item: Young teams do not win in the NBA.

``You're looking at a young team, and it's important to get someone with the right temperament who can work with the players, develop the players, improve these players, and not just kill their confidence right away,'' Baylor said. ``Sometimes you get veteran coaches who don't have the patience to work with young players.''

Baylor said this despite making a run at another recycled guy, Mike Fratello.

``I probably wasn't their first choice of my wife, either,'' Gentry said. ``But we've been together 10 years now, and she kind of likes me.''

Keep that sense of humor, Alvin.

We should probably be thankful Baylor didn't give the job to the always dour Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Clippers assistant who has all that experience with youth from the reservation.

You can't accuse Baylor of settling for mediocrity. Baylor dreams of some day being mediocre.

In Clippers Land, it's always deja vu. We've all been here before. We'll be here again, just not with Gentry.