Mastodon
@Los Angeles Clippers

The Clippers Improved… But Will It Be Enough?



The Clippers Improved… But Will It Be Enough?

We could talk about, oh yeah, they’re better. They’re deeper. This is a team built around James Harden. And fundamentally, you cannot win four playoff rounds with James Harden. How old is he now? 36. And he’s shown us who he is year after year for his entire career. And I just I can’t get excited about it. I’m sorry. Well, it’s also built around Kawhi Leonard. And four playoff rounds is a lot for a player who has battled injuries for his entire Clippers tenure. When you say battled injuries, do you mean he played 266 games in six years and 37 last year? Is that is that battling or is that drowning? Let me just make a couple of cases for the Clippers. Okay. Number one, I don’t think anyone with the Clippers has any like illusions about what they are. They probably think we are a really, really good team that slots in fourth in the West at best. Out goes Ben Simmons, Norm Powell, Amir Coffee, Drew Eubanks, Jordan Miller. In comes Brook Lopez, Bradley Beal, John Collins, Chris Paul. They’re undeniably like better than the team that was last year. They have 11 guys who can really play. They’re going to need all 11 to get through the regular season. And I think the idea of the team is like, look, we know the issues with our top two guys. Harden’s playing big games. Kaw’s availability, etc. We know how good those other three teams are. All we can do with the resources that we have and the money we’ve committed to these two older veterans at the center of our team is put ourselves in the best position possible to pounce if the matchups break right. If a team takes an injury that’s in the top three. That’s all they can do. I don’t think they’re going into the season like, “Oh yeah, we hit it out of the park. We’re a championship favorite.” And I think they know exactly what they

For more from The Ringer:
Shop: https://theringer.com/shop
Website: http://theringer.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ringer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ringer
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ringer

31 Comments

  1. Lowe really think the clips are better? I'd take Norman Powell 10 times out of 10 over Bradley Beal. Lopez is washed and CP is more washed. What, John Collins swings this? Well, maybe. He's not that good a defender though and he was getting 19-8 on a bad bad bad Jazz.

  2. Clippers will be fine lmao. Signing Beal for $7 million a year and CP3 for minimum contract. And they’re all short term 1-2 year deals lmao. They had a great offseason. Lopez was a 2 year deal as well. Bogdonavic is expiring after this year too

  3. I really like cp3 on there tbh. I think his playmaking ability is going to reduce turnovers and create more opportunities in trying to beat the zone especially in the playoffs when half court play really ramps up. I actually thought in the small minutes that ben simmons played last year he kinda was tryna facilitate in a similar way (albeit in transition) and it didnt look bad. Theyre gonna be a sneaky team. They just cant rely on harden for scoring. CP3, Zubach, and Beal need to consistely contribute between 15-20, each if they really tryna make it deep in the playoffs. Kawhi when healthy gonna be consistent. Im optimistic that they can be more dangerous than last year.

  4. The obsession these media guys have with trying to blame everything on Harden is absurd man. They just WANT to perpetuate this choker shit so over his career they've reached for every single way to make it look worse than it was.

    Game 7 wasn't anywhere close to Harden's fault. He was the only one generating actual offense and punishing the defensive strategy the Nuggets were executing. That's why Kawhi and Norm were like -17 in the first half and Harden was only -5.

    Then, to start the 3rd, Ty Lue has Norm and Kawhi alternating bringing the ball up for 6+ possessions in a row.. they don't generate a single point, and the Nuggets blow the game open. Harden had 13 assists and 2 turnovers in like 20 actual minutes of play and it shoulda been more like 20 assists but dudes were bricking easy bunnies at the rim and open corner 3s.

    No way you can say that's Harden's fault unless you're just trying to generate clicks because it's trendy to blame him for all of itm

  5. They were built around Harden last season and you damn near picked them to come outta the west 😂😂😂

  6. Doesn’t help that you can set your watch to Kawhi getting an injury and sitting out 20-30 games and Harden choking in the playoffs.

  7. NBA is dead. Nobody cares about these moves. Harden is toast. Kawhi hasn't been good since Toronto

  8. Of course they will be a failure again. It's appalling to me that any team in this league is still willing to spend this kind of money on Harden & Kawhi and expect to win anything besides selling jerseys.

  9. Of course they will be a failure again. It's appalling to me that any team in this league is still willing to spend this kind of money on Harden & Kawhi and expect to win anything besides selling jerseys.

  10. If Clippers get close to the ring with this veteran team.. This should be their way to sign more vets for it to continue… Cause OKC is young team and as OGs they gotta prove OGs got it

Write A Comment