With today being arguably the most insane trade deadline by one team in NBA history, there are always winners and losers. Surprisingly one of the biggest losers may not be from anything that occurred today. In our eyes the greatest losers made one of their moves roughly two weeks ago. The Los Angeles Clippers are the team that is currently concerning us the most. It always seems that whatever progress they make as an organization is negated at some point no matter what they do. In recent years it seemed that they made great strides, but nothing ever seems to be substantial. I’m a firm believer that we are in some part the makers of the positives and the negatives that occur of us, and with the Clippers they are definitely the makers almost every time.
With that said for starters the Clippers have traded away their two biggest stars in the same season. Think about that for a second. The loss of one of the greatest point guards in league history is always going to be something that sets you back, and this was no different. To add, like we saw with Cleveland and Boston similar productivity doesn’t always translate into the same output and results. The CP3 was just step one too. The second step was dealing away Blake Griffin. Yes, there was a lot of on and off court baggage that came with Griffin, but regardless he is still one of the elite big men in the NBA. The combination of Paul and Griffin was not only entertaining but extremely potent as a one-two punch. At times it was reminiscent of the heyday of the Super Sonics. These weren’t the only losses either, free agency depleted the Clippers as well going into the season. The Clippers lost both JJ Reddick and Jamal Crawford coming into the season, and truly weren’t able to get the return of talent for this season.
However, this isn’t anything new for LA. They will seem to have a substantial nucleus and proceed to disband the team for some reason. Even in the Elton Brand-Q Rich days this seemed to be how the organization made moves. It’s actually very interesting when you step back and look at it too. It’s to a point where you have to ask, what is the actual mission for the organization? They never seem to be gearing towards a “Win Now” true? Championship contender, and never seem patient enough to build and develop talent. I mean, I want you to think about it. Even at the height of the Lob City they remained “The Other Team” in LA. Consider this, through the injuries and retirement saga for Kobe, there was a lot of spotlight taken away from play of the Clippers. Even now the storyline of Lonzo Ball is more appealing than the actual play of the Clippers. All of this really makes one raise an eyebrow.
My goal was far from discrediting the talent or players that have come to LA. It’s just the return on investment has not been the same in many cases. This makes us question the motives of the front office. There have been rumors going for some time about turmoil between that vision and the players. And if we are being honest, something is clearly off. For a team in a large market, for some reason they consistently struggle to maintain and attract quality talent. They also seem to lack substantial vision or direction. At this point I think it’s time to start wondering if the talent is the use or if it’s something else. We will continue to let things unfold in LA, but they are in aren’t in the best of places. We will see how it plays out, but there track record doesn’t make us confident for the future.