Note: An updated version of this story appears as a column in the Los Angeles Times posted on Aug. 20 at this link.
An audio version read by the author of the new column is also available at the GameTakes app, linked here.

By Tom Hoffarth
If only this was a simple Hollywood relationship that occasionally had its dramatic ups-and-downs based on insecurities, jealousy and side-ways assumptions.
But when you’ve got the Clippers involved as a partner and you can’t moonwalk quick enough when they drag you onto the dance floor, you aren’t realistically prepared for what can come next.
Fox Sports West/Prime Ticket still has not responded to reports that surfaced Monday in that its NBA broadcast partner, so unhappy with Bruce Bowen as the team’s game analyst after just one season, “withheld approval” of a contract extension based on critical things he said in a late-June Siriux XM radio interview about former San Antonio teammate Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers contended that Bowen’s comments could compromise the team’s possible signing of him as a free agent next summer.
The quoted words appeared in a story first reported by the ever-reliable ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski. But that story quickly morphed into a narrative that became: The Clippers had fired Bowen.
But could they?
Bowen has since confirmed the report … read more about it here at FartherOffTheWall.com.