Via The J-Notes
Key Players: Lou Williams, Tobias Harris
Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Abraham Lincoln, Michael Jackson, Albert Einstein, Muhammed Ali, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and Blake Griffin. What do all these names have in common? None are members of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Just one year after pulling off the worst free-agency pitch known to man, the Clippers traded power forward Blake Griffin to the Detroit Pistons for Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanovic, and first- and second-round draft picks.
With the trade of the franchise's former golden boy, the writing was on the wall for the Lob City-era. DeAndre Jordan cemented the conclusion of one the best stretches in Clippers basketball history, by signing to the Dallas Mavericks on a one-year, $24 million deal.
SoundSports is cultured. You know what else is cultured? Poetry. With that being said, this great piece of poetry from Zoe Skylar is going to describe the Los Angeles Clippers current situation: "For a star to be born, there is one thing that must happen: a gaseous nebula must collapse. So collapse. Crumble. This is not your destruction. This is your birth.​"
The gaseous nebula that was the Chris Paul/Blake Griffin/DeAndre Jordan-led Clippers has collapsed and crumbled; and, just like Skylar said, the franchise isn't destroyed. The new Clippers are on the verge of being born.
Los Angeles' Best Case Scenario
Via HoopsHype
If the above picture didn't give it away, the best-case scenario for the Clippers involves arguably two of the top-5 two-way players wearing their uniform next year. The resources of Los Angeles combined with the team's ability to offer two max contracts has some of the NBA's top free agents wanting to be apart of the other basketball team in LA.
In a shocking turn of Summer events, both Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler let their respective teams know that they want to play for the Clippers. This recent wave of player empowerment proves that the league's top talent is always looking into how well they'd fit elsewhere, but that's an article for another day.
The Los Angeles Clippers have a roster anyone could fit into. Think of a good role player that's probably been overhyped as a borderline star, and there's a good chance that player is in a Clippers uniform this season.
Both Avery Bradley and Danilo Gallinari are only one year removed of garnering serious possibilities of receiving a nine-digit contract. In his last healthy season, Avery Bradley averaged 16.3 points and 6.1 rebounds while being acclaimed as "one of the NBA's best on-ball defenders" by the guy who spits in the face of good defense, Kyrie Irving. Yes, that was a Carlito reference. Just last season, Danilo Gallinari was coming off season averages of 19.5 points and 5.3 rebounds on 41 percent three-point shooting.
Bradley and Gallinari are enticing role players in themselves, but they pale in comparison to the Tobias Harris-Lou Williams super role player duo. In his 12th NBA season, Lou Williams averaged a career-high 22.6 points and 5.3 assists a night as the Clippers main option. Despite the 31-year-old winning the 2018 Sixth Man of the Year trophy, many felt he earned All-Star recognition for his 2017-2018 performance. Tobias Harris didn't get the same public outroar as Williams, but he did have a similarly impressive season. The 25-year-old wing averaged 18.6 points and 5.5 rebounds on 49 percent field goal shooting with a 41 percent three-point conversion rate. Harris performed so well last season that the Clippers have deemed him untouchable in any Jimmy Butler trade packages.
If the Clippers' super role players can have a repeat of past season's success, it'd be hard to imagine at least one superstar player not joining the team for the 2019-2020 season.
Los Angeles' Worst Case Scenario
Via Business Insider
Just how bad could things possibly go for the Clippers? They're a team filled with solid players and their only expectation is to not do anything to mess up their 2019 free agency. However, this is the same organization, who in the last five years, blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Semifinals, lost one of their best players for half the season after he punched a trainer, and had their past owner role-playing as a 1700s slave owner on voicemail.
So to answer a previous question with a question, how far are we willing to take this scenario?
The setting is Little Caesars Arena on a warm June night. The Blake Griffin-led Detriot Pistons are hosting a game six Finals matchup against Chris Paul and the Houston Rockets. Following an instant classic seven-game defeating of the Toronto Raptors in the Eastern Conference Finals, Blake Griffin admits his motivation for the season was to get what the Clippers promised him -- his name in the rafters.
After coming so close to carrying his team to the Finals, Kawhi Leonard emotionally declared his commitment to bringing a ring to the city of Toronto.
The Finals MVP is a clear two-man race between former teammates Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. Both played in every game throughout the playoffs and credited their health to their respective franchise's training facilities. As a result, the Clippers are getting trashed in the media, leaving team owner Steve Ballmer to jump ship and sell the team. However, the team only has one group of bidders -- the Donalds a.k.a. the powerplantation duo of Donald Sterling and Donald Trump. After the Donalds suggest a series of name changes that won't be repeated here, Adam Silver and the other league owners decide it'd be better for the entire franchise to just be dismantled.
The Clippers have collapsed and crumbled. This is their destruction.
Record Prediction: 40-42; The Clippers season begins July 2019.