The Los Angeles Clippers will open next season in maybe the coolest arena we've ever seen for an NBA game: the Intuit Dome. There's a giant wall of fans to intimidate opposing teams. The technology from the seats to the concourse to the floor is going to be top-of-the-line. It's incredible.
The fans finally have a home of their own — instead of feeling like they're just the cousin staying with the more well-to-do relative, the Lakers.
It should be an exciting time.
But because of that, they couldn't enter into this season with a rebuilding team. They needed to put butts in seats to garner hype.
One problem: the CBA and the timing of Paul George's contract. The Clippers let Paul George go this week as he chose a four-year $212 million max deal with the Philadelphia 76ers that will take him through age 38. Los Angeles had essentially already made this move by not extending him last year after extending Kawhi Leonard.
The Clippers couldn't pay George more than Leonard, not when Leonard is (at least thought of as) such a better player, even if George is more available. They couldn't offer George more years, and signing him would impact their chances of escaping the double apron and limit what they can do long-term.
So they let him walk.
Reports have begun to surface that the Clippers were not thrilled with the end of George's run. After all, he hadn't earned any goodwill after the 2020 bubble disaster against the Denver Nuggets and the first-round exit this season against the Dallas Mavericks.
Somehow, Paul has largely suffered the blunt of the blame for the Clippers' failures. This has baffled me for years.
If you ask who the Clippers' best player is, it is unanimously described as Kawhi Leonard. If you ask who is to blame for the Clippers' failures, it is almost unanimously described as George's inability to step up. On no other team is the best player given all the praise and none of the criticism, save maybe LeBron James, who has earned quite a bit of benefit of the doubt.
But in the aftermath, the moment that the Clippers understood they were not going to retain George, or that they weren't willing to do whatever it takes to retain him, should have provided a moment of opportunity.
In 2013, the Boston Celtics traded the franchise cornerstones of their latest championship team, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, to the Brooklyn Nets for draft capital.
Four years later, the Celtics used their swap rights with the Nets to acquire the No. 1 pick. They then moved back two spots with the Philadelphia 76ers and drafted… Jayson Tatum. Sorry, that's NBA champion and "just-signed-a-deal-for-a-third-of-a-billion-dollars" Jayson Tatum.
However, James Harden was the real issue. He was a free agent, so they couldn't trade him, given the Clippers had a real shot at the deadline before everything fell apart around Leonard's health for what feels like the 18th season in a row.
But had the team been more imaginative, there were ways to take advantage of star-hunting teams to set up a fun, competitive-if-not-contending team. Teams like Houston would have leapt at the chance to obtain Leonard. The Lakers don't have any great assets, but the Clippers could have at least leveraged them against another team.
Teams would have taken their shot with Leonard being healthy the same way the Clippers have over and over.
And in the aftermath, the Clippers could have recouped some of the haul they gave up to Oklahoma City in the George deal to find a long-term path to at least being .500 through their draft drought. A sign-and-trade for Harden might have been onerous, but with Harden signing a two-year deal with a player option for next summer, there's a decent chance the Clippers lose him anyway.
To be clear, the Clippers have done well in free agency otherwise. They've added Derrick Jones Jr, Mo Bamba, Kris Dunn and Nicolas Batum. They have a decent roster around the two stars.
Signing Kevin Porter Jr. was a universally disgusting decision given his off-court issues but sadly nothing new in the world of sports and a flyer deal based on his talent.
The team is good, but great?
Will key players be available and fresh enough come May? The only way to keep Harden and Leonard rested enough to compete for a title is to give them nights off. You could stagger them before with George, and he played the most games without both of the other two. The Clippers went 11-7 when George played while missing at least one of the other two.
| Lineup 2023-24 | Record | Point Differential |
|---|---|---|
| The Big 3 Together | 37-19 | 4 |
| Kawhi and PG, no Harden | 4-3 | 9.7 |
| Kawhi and Harden, no PG | 2-2 | 1.2 |
| PG and Harden, no Kawhi | 6-4 | -1.3 |
| Kawhi, no PG, no Harden | 0-0 | 0 |
| Harden, no PG, no Kawhi | 1-1 | 0.5 |
| PG, no Kawhi, no Harden | 1-0 | 13 |
For all the criticism of PG's inability to "step up," he still held up the team in all those times when Leonard was not available due to injury.
Still, if we go back to 2021 since the Bubble and exclude the 2021-22 season when Kawhi missed the entire season with his knee injury (which seems like a pretty important detail, but I digress), the Clippers have played 51 games with George and no Kawhi in the regular season and 47 games with Kawhi and no PG.
So maybe they'll be fine, but the odds are that the team will be worse next season. Since the two came together in 2019, the Clippers have gone 64-69 when George is out of the lineup (48%) and 86-93 without Leonard (48%).
Maybe Ty Lue and another year of Harden with a simplified roster will lead to better results. Maybe this will provide a perfectly fine transition to whatever comes next for the Clippers.
But still, the Clippers had a real chance to re-imagine the team by giving up completely on the super-team era. They could have cleared the slate, traded Leonard for some exciting young player and had a fresh start in a new building. But if it hadn't worked out, they would have faced the new ultra-cool building hosting a rebuilding team no one cares about.
There's a lot of talk in league circles that this might be the last year for this iteration of the team anyway. Lue just signed an extension. Leonard's on the books through 2027, but Harden can opt out and chase greener pastures and the latest team to talk themselves into him next summer. The cap sheet is pretty bare in guaranteed deals for next season beyond Norman Powell and Derrick Jones Jr.
But for this year, the Clippers have the coolest arena in the NBA and the equivalent of an aging rock band playing one last tour.
