Ballmer to Clippers: Apple products have to go

We can't trust their security. We can't trust their software updates either.

Men, you can't risk your naked selfies appearing on Reddit.

Their phones are just too small. Oh, wait.

These were some of the lines I imagine that Steve Ballmer was rehearsing when he realized he had to break the news to his new on-court developers in Los Angeles.

It seems, you see, that the inevitable will occur: the Los Angeles Clippers will have to use Microsoft products.

I conclude this from words offered by the new Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO to Reuters. He uttered this: "Most of the Clippers are on Windows, some of the players and coaches are not."

Let us pause for thoughts such as: "Do they really think I'm going to pay them millions and watch them be mannequins for the effeminate tools from Cupertino?"

And now for more of Ballmer's actual words, specifically referencing highly respected and (oddly) highly emotional coach Doc Rivers.

He said: "Doc kind of knows that's a project. It's one of the first things he said to me: 'We are probably going to get rid of these iPads, aren't we?' And I said, 'Yeah, we probably are.' But I promised we would do it during the off season."

The off season has but a month to run. Very soon, meaningless pre-season games will begin. Perhaps it's during this time that Ballmer will call Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and the rest together and sell them on the virtues of having bright blue Surfaces.

He will point to the NFL where they're already in use -- and "="" shortcode="link" asset-type="article" uuid="25e8dbf8-635a-4872-95d6-65bd68ffdfa7" slug="nfl-announcers-call-microsoft-surface-ipad-like" link-text="where the announcers call them " section="news" title="NFL announcer forgets name, calls Microsoft Surface 'iPad-like'" edition="us" data-key="link_bulk_key" api="{"id":"25e8dbf8-635a-4872-95d6-65bd68ffdfa7","slug":"nfl-announcers-call-microsoft-surface-ipad-like","contentType":null,"edition":"us","topic":{"slug":"culture"},"metaData":{"typeTitle":null,"hubTopicPathString":"Culture","reviewType":null},"section":"news"}"> " or even, as I heard once on the radio, "iPads."

He will, I fancy, glory in the fact that the Seattle Seahawks now appear in Surface ads.

Then he will scream and scream and scream, until the players and coaches understand that he is getting his way.

Tellingly, a Clippers source whispered to the LA Times that Ballmer wouldn't insist players and employees change their personal gadgets. However, the paper was informed, "it probably wouldn't be wise to whip out an iPhone at team headquarters in Playa Vista."

Some might imagine that insisting on the Clippers' utter loyalty to Microsoft is absurd. However, perhaps Ballmer has a better understanding of brand than many.

In LA, the Clippers have always been Microsoft to the Lakers' Apple.

Even when the Clippers are patently better than the Lakers, the latter still have the image of sexy. How that could have been with the likes of Kent Bazemore in the team, as last year, is hard to fathom.

Perhaps, as well as obvious loyalty to his brand, Ballmer wants his Clippers to rally around the concept of the developing underdog, ready to prove everyone wrong.

Microsoft and the Clippers are the plucky future. That's a notion that trend philosophers will surely discuss at some length.