Despite a successful offseason in the eyes of most, the Los Angeles Clippers are setting themselves up for failure this season. Although, there’s a solution waiting for them in Cleveland
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The Los Angeles Clippers have arguably had the most eventful offseason in the NBA. On top of the Deandre Jordan will-he-or-won’t-he fiasco with the Dallas Mavericks, they’ve brought Paul Pierce back to his Inglewood roots and also acquired the enigmatic Lance Stephenson. Step back a little further and there’s genuine excitement surrounding the squad after slaying the Spurs in last season’s epic first-round playoff series, before blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Houston Rockets in the Conference Semifinals.
Most have the Los Angeles Clippers pegged as a top 3 – 5 team in the Western Conference and legitimate threat to interrupting the Spurs/Warriors Conference Title clash (sorry OKC). However, as we learned with the 2004 Lakers and 2011 Heat, super teams on paper don’t necessarily translate to super teams on the court. I, for one, am parked squarely in the latter camp. Let’s take a dive into all of the impending problems that await the Clippers this season…..plus an unlikely solution awaiting in Cleveland!
CLIPPER PROBLEMS
Sep 29, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers forward
Blake Griffin(32), center
DeAndre Jordan(6) and guard
Chris Paul(3) answer questions during media day at the team’s training facility in Playa Vista. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Schedule
As I outlined last week, the Los Angeles Clippers have one of the toughest schedules in the league. They have a league-high 20 back-to-backs, plus four separate five-game road trips. To cap it all off, their one 4-games-in-5-nights stretch occurs at the tail-end of the season (March 27 – 31), when these players will be mentally and physically fatigued.
Age
After fielding the 4th oldest team last season (average: 28.8), they went out and got older with Josh Smith (29), Paul Pierce (38 by opening day) and Pablo Prigioni (38).
Lance Stephenson
Yay! The Clippers picked up a shooting guard who can’t shoot (37.6% FG% and 17.1% 3PT FG%). Lance has played five seasons and has yet to produce a season with an above-league-average PER. For his career, he doesn’t even average double-digits in scoring (8.9 ppg), barely hits two-thirds of his free throws (career 66.9% FT%), and had one season where he averaged a Deandre-esque 47.1% FT%. Plus, there was this…
Josh Smith
Last season, J-Smoove (or Too Smoove) was waived by the bottom-dwelling Pistons and picked up by the Rockets. As a product of Houston’s system, he hoisted 3.5 three-pointers per game and ended the season shooting 31.6 percent, which is higher than his career average of 28.5 percent.
Many will remember the key role he played in helping Houston come back from 3 – 1 to eliminate these Clippers, but dig a little deeper and the outlook’s not that bright. He shot a career-worst 41.9 percent and “improved” from a below-average PER with Detroit (14.3) to league-average (15.2) with Houston. All this is to say: keep your expectations low that he’ll net positive, and expectations high that he’ll drive Chris Paul crazy with needless long jumpers.
Lance Stephenson – again
Oh, so you read the Stephenson paragraph and immediately jumped to, “he’s not known for his offense,” correct? While he was top-15 in Defensive Win Shares and Defensive Rating in the 2013-14 season, is it too far-fetched to think that was more a product of the Pacers’ system?
The ENTIRE starting lineup made the top-20 in Defensive Win Shares that season (Paul George = 2nd; David West = 4th; Roy Hibbert = 5th; Stephenson = 6th; George Hill = 20th). The following season with the Hornets, Lance’s defensive numbers slipped considerably (DWS = 1.8, ranked 133rd; DRtg = 105, ranked 176th). Plus, there was this…
Austin Rivers
The coach’s son started a grand total of nine games over the last two seasons. In each of his first three seasons, he’s posted negative VORP ratings and is a sub-par offensive guard (97 ORtg, negative Offensive Win Shares on his career) in an offensive, small-ball league. That didn’t stop Austin from recently stating that he was better than most players at last week’s Team USA scrimmage.
Lance Stephenson – once more
One more, for good measure…
THE CAVALIER SOLUTION
Fear not, Clipper fans. There’s a solution that can help salvage this ominous season AND help build for your future. Trade Chris Paul!
The Clippers have the deck stacked against them and are a candidate for regression. With a brutal schedule plus some pieces that may not fit, the likelihood of a slow start, especially in the Western Conference, is fairly high. They face the Warriors three times within the first three weeks, then have two separate 5-game road trips in December.
Over in the East, the Conference favourite, Cleveland Cavaliers, have their own wildcard in Kyrie Irving. Since December 2013, here’s a list of Irving’s injuries:
- 12/20/2013 – Flu
- 01/02/2014 – Sore knee
- 03/16/2014 – Left biceps
- 12/11/2014 – Left knee injury
- 12/28/2014 – Left knee contusion
- 01/04/2015 – Lower back tightness
- 01/21/2015 – Illness
- 02/27/2015 – Left shoulder strain
- 05/22/2015 – Left knee tendonitis
- 06/05/2015 – Fractured left knee cap
Are you willing to bet Irving will be injury-free by the trade deadline?
Walk with me as we gaze into the next few months:
- December 2015 – Irving has soreness in his left knee. For precaution, he sits out a couple games
- January 2016 – Clippers hovers around .500 and battling with the Suns and Mavs for the 8th playoff spot
- Early February 2016 – After Paul voices displeasure with Clippers’ direction, Lebron James reaches out to his banana boat buddy
- All-Star Break – Stealing the thunder from the first all-star weekend hosted north of the border, the Clippers and Cavs announce a blockbuster trade – Kyrie Irving & Anderson Varejao for Chris Paul & Jamal Crawford
For the Cavs, the positives of this deal are glaring. They upgrade at the PG position, especially on the defensive side, and add a former 6th man of the year who can create his own shot. Lebron’s not getting any younger and this may be his best chance to finally bring a championship to Cleveland, so the deal makes sense, even if it means sacrificing crowd favourite, Varejao.
For the Los Angeles Clippers, they solve several problems with this deal. Yes, they lose the league’s best PG for an injury-prone PG, but look a little deeper. Irving is seven years younger than Paul, is a three-time all-star, and has consistently shown that he can return to all-nba level after each setback. While Paul would be the Present, Irving would be the Present and Future. The loss of Crawford isn’t that bad when you consider he’s already in trade rumors, and the Pierce/Stephenson acquisitions make him expendable.
The addition of Varejao helps shore up a thin frontcourt that only has Josh Smith, Cole Aldrich, and 2015 draft pick, Branden Dawson, backing up Griffin and Jordan.