NBA Rumors: Clippers eyeing big summer, landing Durant and Kawhi
NBA Rumors: The Los Angeles Clippers have big plans for the summer, which include landing both Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard
The Los Angeles Clippers have been one of the biggest – and most pleasant – surprises of the 2018-19 NBA season thus far. The Clippers are currently 17-10, sitting as one of the top 4 teams in the Western Conference and only 1.5 games back of the top seed.
Led by Tobias Harris, a resurgent Danilo Gallinari and Lou Williams, the Clippers have impressed and appear to be a real threat to make the playoffs in the West this season. Even without a clear star on the roster, Doc Rivers has done a wonderful job with this young(ish) Clippers roster.
But, if management has it their way, the best is yet to come for this franchise. They reportedly have big eyes for the summer, where the plan is to land both Kevin Durant and Kawhi Leonard.
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At the very least one of them.
"[via ESPN]Ballmer’s vision is to land Leonard or Durant — or both, as long as they’re swinging for the fences — and then ride them to glory and a new arena in Inglewood that could turn the Clippers into one of the premier franchises in the league."
It won’t be easy to land one of the big fishes during the summer, let alone both of them. Especially considering the competition that the Clippers will encounter on the free agency landscape. Apart from their incumbent teams (Golden State Warriors, Toronto Raptors), nearly every other team with salary cap space will be seeking meetings and pitches for these two players.
But landing just one of them could change the Clippers franchise for decades to come. This is a franchise that has known nothing but failure. Nothing but disappointment and nothing but playing second fiddle to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Landing one of the top two free agents would dramatically change this team’s immediate timeline and would automatically make this team a contender, even more so if they could find a way to pry Durant away from the machine that the Warriors have become.
Related Story. Have the Lakers quietly become the second-best team in the West?. light
The Clippers have some big plans for the off-season. Question is, how successful will they be in landing their next face of the franchise?