We Might Have Seen the Last of the Lob City Clippers… Thankfully
You won’t find too many people disappointed that the LA Clippers got dumped from the NBA Playoffs in the first round. They’ve been a fun team these last few years but they haven’t exactly been a popular team. Getting eliminated by the Utah Jazz in game seven at home? It’s probably for the best.
There’s a prevailing thought in NBA culture that if you aren’t competing for a championship or building to compete for a championship then you’re broken and need fixing. Maybe by tanking for picks, maybe by firing the coach, maybe by trading away assets and re-tooling. It’s a silly idea because the Memphis Grizzlies have nothing to be ashamed about after seven straight playoffs appearances have yielded four total series wins, a winning season is always something to strive for, but stasis can make for frustrated fans.
The Clippers have been stuck for the whole Lob City era in that tricky place between being not good enough to make the Finals but good enough that they’re too close not to try. The regular injuries to Chris Paul and, especially, Blake Griffin haven’t helped either. Their seasons have been a recurring cycle of preseason expectations, midseason panics and postseason failures but now we might have finally hit the crossroads for Los Angeles’ second most popular basketball team (despite several years now of being far and away the city’s strongest side).
There was nothing drastic about the way they lost to Utah. Gordon Hayward and George Hill played really well for the Jazz, with Derrick Favors having a strong night off the bench. The Clippers got blown out in the middle quarters, eventually going down 104-91. Utah defended the perimeter fantastically and the Clippers didn’t have a single player with multiple three-pointers – 6/25 as a team. Even though Rudy Gobert got stuck in foul trouble, which allowed DeAndre Jordan to cash in off the boards, it was still Utah’s defensive prowess that made the difference across the series. It was tight stuff but you can’t complain in the end.
It certainly wasn’t like that time they blew a 19 point lead in a potential game six closer against the Rockets in 2015, where they missed 14 straight shots as Houston finished on a 49-18 run. No way, it wasn’t that bad. It also wasn’t like the time Kevin Durant scored 39 points in game seven the year earlier to eliminate them in the Conference Semis, after LAC had blown multiple double-digit leads in that series. Compared to those the Jazz defeat was almost casual.
But the end product is that six straight years of playoffs basketball with the Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan core has comprised for zero Conference Finals appearances. Hence every year there’s some jackass who writes a big piece about how the Clippers need to tear it up and start again – as if that trio aren’t marketing gold, as if they don’t make All-Star games every year, as if they aren’t valuable player with 51+ wins in the last five seasons (and the sixth was a lockout season).
This time, however, there’s some truth to that idea and it has nothing to do with the franchise itself. It’s about those players, who may or may not have compatible personalities, players who can only bear so much emotional scar tissue without a change.
Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have player options that they’ll almost certainly decline to chase multi-year deals. Paul can sign a massive $200m deal if he stays with the Clippers but then he’ll also be staying with the Clippers. As for Griffin, he must genuinely feel like a switch of teams might do him good after his last two seasons ended with injury. J.J. Redick will is a free agent and will be a sought after shooter clubhouse leader. Paul Pierce has retired, for what that’s worth. DeAndre Jordan will still be around but he can leave after next season and if Paul and Griffin aren’t there then he might think it’s time for him to skip town as well.
Which would leave them with next to nothing. The knock on the Clips has always been that their supporting cast hasn’t been worth a damn. Austin Rivers is a valuable contributor here, for God’s sake. They haven’t drafted anyone worth a damn to them since Blake in 2009 and the veteran hands they have managed to coax in are all temporary fixes. Doc Rivers’ reputation outreaches his current coaching effectiveness and the lack of youthful impact off the bench ain’t helping him. Take out Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and that’s not a team that’s anywhere near the playoffs unless they find something special to replace them.
That’s all gonna play out slowly and very publically over the next few months. The players have a huge decision to make while the team has to figure out how to either balance the salaries or approach a season without at least a third of their core. One way or another it’ll find some kind of resolution.
But if this really is the end of Lob City then good bloody riddance, to be honest. Chris Paul has always brought on criticism for his bossy nature and tendency to moan at refs. That second point is something he has in common with Blake Griffin and opposition fans tend not to take that stuff too well. Same goes with the tendency of Blake and DAJ to emphatically dunk on guys that weren’t even challenging, boasting against bench dudes while up 20 points or thumping one down with a roar when all you did was catch and dunk in metres of space. If you’ve stormed to the hoop on the dribble and humiliated some poor sucker going for the block then fair enough but pick your moments.
Also Doc Rivers is a whinger as well and when made to justify a frustrating playoffs exit every year, or juggle his team around the injuries of key dudes, that’s a hard thing to put up with as a neutral. Then there was that time that DeAndre Jordan signed with Dallas, changed his mind, didn’t tell the Mavs what he was doing and more or less barricaded himself at home amidst the legendary emoji war with the rest of his team. It was a farcical situation, hilarious and disgraceful in alternative measures. Paul Pierce’s screenshotted emoji contribution and Blake Griffin’s facetious tweets being the highlights. Name another team that could happen too… there isn’t one. Only the Clippers.
And it’s only the Clippers that could combine losing multiple devastating playoff series despite having one of the greatest point guards of the modern era playing really well in most of them with all the other dramas that they deal with. The Donald Sterling thing was a shameful tragedy that they showed magnificent spirit to rally around in 2014. But the same coach that showed outstanding leadership at that time is also an abysmal general manager who ships away draft picks and has an over-reliance on his own son.
Blake Griffin is the best actor in the NBA. That’s not a flopping joke, he was on Broad City and he’s a legend in those Kia ads. He also punched one of his best mates at a Toronto restaurant, breaking his hand and earning a four match suspension. For all the playoff losses there have also been pure unlucky injuries. Their new owner is a Microsoft billionaire who is a borderline insane person. So many years as a laughing stock franchise and all their success has only made things crazier.
That’s the Los Angeles Clippers. Can’t really blame anyone who wants to leave, can you?
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