Rowan Kavner
LOS ANGELES – As the Clippers rallied from an 11-point fourth quarter deficit to beat the Magic at home Dec. 5, they had little on their mind but the euphoria of a come-from-behind win.
Clippers equipment and facilities manager Pete Serrano doesn’t share that luxury.
While the Clippers live in the present, Serrano’s playing a game of chess in his mind, thinking two steps ahead. He’s the man behind the scenes making sure the uniforms and equipment make their way in the proper manner to the next destination.
“I’m doing certain things, and then by seeing stuff, it rings a bell,” said Serrano, who was already looking toward the Christmas Day game at the end of the Clippers’ road trip. “I’m working on stuff for the next road trip, I’m working on stuff for 2016-17 already. It never really stops.”
Serrano’s in his 31st season with the Clippers, so he’s used to it by now. He joined the team as a ball boy in 1986, and two years later became the equipment manager. Without Serrano, there are no uniforms ready for the team upon arrival. In fact, there’s no equipment at all.
He’s the one making sure everything runs accordingly. The jerseys? Pete put them there. The shoes and warm-ups? That’s Pete. Even when the Clippers arrive past midnight in a new city, as if often the case after a game, Serrano’s there in the early morning sorting everything out.
As the Clippers finished their victory against Orlando, Serrano’s mind raced forward to the first sizable road trip of the season, one they’d end up finishing 4-1.
The Clippers embarked on the trip Dec. 6 and played in Minnesota the next day. After staying overnight, they left for Milwaukee in advance of the Bucks game Dec. 9. Usually, they’ll fly to the next city, but because of its proximity, they took a bus after the game to Chicago.
They stayed the night in the “Windy City” Dec. 10 and left the next day for New York, where they’d be playing Dec. 12 in Brooklyn before traveling the next morning for their final stop of the trip in Detroit.
“I got used to the 15-day mega road trips,” Serrano said. “This season the longest trip is what, five games? So, it’s really not too difficult. We can put that together in a couple of days.”
Still, any trip takes significant planning.
“You start with looking at the itinerary and seeing where you’re practicing and where you’re shooting around and what you need,” Serrano said. “Do you need to bring basketballs? Are you practicing offsite? Do you need to be self-sufficient multiple times? What uniforms are you wearing? Are you wearing all three, or just one? Is there a program going on? Are there specialty shirts? For instance, we wore black special jackets in two of the cities.”
These thoughts cycle through Serrano’s mind before the Clippers ever step foot on the plane, which they did at 10:30 a.m. the morning after the win against Orlando. By then, Serrano already had practically everything loaded up and ready to go.
The plane must be loaded a certain way, and Serrano has a lot to consider. Will the team practice upon landing? What needs to be loaded first, and what will the Clippers need immediately, to be loaded last?
“You can’t just pile everything in,” Serrano said.
And it’s not just basketball equipment he has to consider, though that’s a large portion of it. There’s also medical and video equipment and items for the Fox Sports traveling team.
When the Clippers do arrive, Serrano’s job is just beginning. If the Clippers are practicing, which they did in a light session on their first stop in Minnesota, Serrano needs to have everything ready at whatever gym they’re heading to. That means clean jerseys, medical equipment handy and shoes ready to go.
“Every player typically has between two and seven pairs of shoes they need,” Serrano said. “Some switch them up, some don’t. Like Chris (Paul), he’s one of the players who likes to switch up the shoes from stop to stop.”
Serrano said Paul will wear one pair for shooting around and another for playing, but he said some players keep the same shoes for up to a month. That’s something that won’t matter to many people, but it’s important for Serrano.
His planning begins the minute he gets the itinerary. He checks out where the Clippers are going and what uniforms the team is wearing. On the road, the Clippers get to choose that, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the foe’s home jerseys.
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s scheduled through the NBA and through the team for visiting teams that you have to really be aware of when you’re packing,” Serrano said. “We’ve changed out certain things on this trip. We wore two different uniforms. We wore jackets twice and pullover shirts three times. That wasn’t set up by the team. That was set up by the league. So there’s a lot of moving pieces.”
Many of the players like the alternate black uniforms, so that was the preference on this trip. But when Milwaukee wanted to wear its black uniforms at home, that’s something Serrano had to know. It meant making sure the Clippers’ red jerseys were ready to go the minute the players arrived at the arena, which most Clippers do two or three hours before tip-off.
There’s a “ghost bus” for the early arrivers. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan are typically among those players. Then, 30 minutes later is another bus with players and 30 minutes after that is the final bus, which often includes the coaching staff.
The players get their stretching and pre-game workouts in. Some get up shots hours before tip-off. They work with strength and conditioning coach Richard Williams and assistant strength and conditioning coach Brent Tanaka. For those a little dinged up, it also means stretching and speaking with head athletic trainer Jasen Powell and assistant athletic trainer Joe Resendez.
Long before the players get there, Serrano must have everything already set out. That’s why his work days begin early in the morning, usually a half hour before the team breakfast.
“I meet the video guys every single morning on the road early to see what their needs are, because they’re first for the day,” Serrano said. “I make sure they’re set up. When we’re sitting there, some of the coaches come down and we talk about the day. That’s usually when the day begins on the road.”
That was the case in Detroit, meeting with the video coordinators at 8:30 a.m. That day, the Clippers also held an optional shooting session at a local school two hours later, something Serrano had to attend and organize logistically.
Typically, with optional shooting sessions, Serrano said between one and 12 players will participate. In Detroit, six players got shots up before the night game.
“Then, after the shootaround, back to the hotel, drop the players and staff off, then come down here to the arena around 12, stay here about an hour,” Serrano said. “The bus is loaded with everything. Come here, unload everything, set the locker room up, make calls, get everything ready, make sure everything’s set up for our arrival back home.”
There may be occasional lulls, but Serrano’s job rarely stops. Even when he’s on the road, he’s checking the daily operations at the team’s practice facility and at STAPLES Center. That was the case prior to the game against the Pistons, because immediately after their overtime victory in Detroit, they jumped on a flight back to Los Angeles.
Upon return around 1:30 a.m., Serrano’s night still wasn’t over. While the players and staff went home, Serrano trucked over to the training facility. In two days, the Clippers would be playing the Bucks at home, and he needed to wash and hang dry the jerseys.
“I’ll finish up tonight around 3 a.m. and I’ll be back at the training center around 6, just to finish up everything, get things ready for the next home game,” Serrano said. “Guys will come in tomorrow, and I just need to prepare the training center and anything else coming in from the front office or the business side.”
He also needed to get ready for what’s coming a day after the home game against Milwaukee. On Thursday, the Clippers hit the road again for a two-game trip to Texas, as the process starts all over.
“You don’t really have to repack overwhelmingly again, since basically we’re just gone three days and playing back-to-back games, so everything’s pretty much already packed,” Serrano said. “But when we come back from the next trip, you’re packing significantly again. It’s another five-game road trip.”
