Ric Bucher's post on Basketball | Latest updates on Sulia

Chauncey Billups doesn't agree with Kobe Bryant that the Clippers are championship timber. At least not yet.

Billups, having both won a title in Detroit and played on several teams with title hopes that fell short for a variety of reasons, has a keen sense of how a championship team looks, thinks and plays -- as well as what a counterfeit version looks like. The Clippers, he said, have some of the obvious qualities but not some of the subtler ones. "The big things are there," he told me. "It's the little things we don't do. That's the step we haven't made yet. We have everything you need, but none of that matters if everybody doesn't do the little things. Because somewhere along the line you're going to run into somebody who does and you're going to get exposed." Billups didn't say the Clippers couldn't get there; he just made it clear they're not there yet and, unless they understand that, that's where they'll stay.