By Yaw Adjei-Mintah
@ YawMintYM on Twitter
For the best part in half a decade, the Los Angeles Clippers has been the third best team in the Western Conference behind only 2014 NBA Champions San Antonio Spurs and 2015 winners Golden State Warriors. Add the Cleveland Cavaliers from the Eastern Conference to the mix and Los Angeles’ other team has consistently ranked fourth overall in the league.
The Houston Rockets have been the only side to penetrate the top three bracket in the conference as they are doing this season in the same way it did in 2014-2015 season.
On the back off a trio of top talent in Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul, the Clippers have become the better team in the city of Angeles.
The end was near for the Lakers as Kobe Bryant’s dwindling powers coincided with the rot the club was about to go through since the Dwight Howard- Steve Nash-Bryant experiment failed miserably. As the Lakers struggled to be competitive, the Clippers made going to the conference semifinals as easy as ordering pizza in Ghana.
However, that regular season success is yet to translate into playoff success as several semifinal exits have capped the side’s title run. It surely can’t be a question of talent as the team has a collection of top talent aside the above mentioned trio who are All-Stars.
Its two remaining starting spots is manned by easily one of the most clinical three point shooters in the league JJ Reddick (has a career average 41.4% three point shooting) and one of the best wing defenders in Luc Richard Mbah-A-Moute. Much of the team’s disappointment has been labeled on the Clippers bench.
However, a bench that employs Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, Marresse Speights, Raymond Felton and Brandon Bass shouldn’t be a team’s Achilles heel. In past years, players like Lance Stephenson have had run out for the side to no avail. For crying out loud, Paul Pierce is on the bench for the Clippers; years playing at the top has robbed him off his usual maneuvers to the basket but the Inglewood native can play. He is just a full season removed from almost sending Washington Wizards to the Eastern Conference Finals.
Thanks to the Golden State Warriors we know now what the side has missed all this while and needs to fix realize its potential. A 120-133 loss highlighted Clippers weak mentality to compete at an elite level; forget what the team did at Madison Square Garden against a weak New York Knicks team.
Against the Warriors, the Clippers basically crumbled without putting up much of a fight on its way to solidifying its fourth spot in the conference standings. Numbers don’t lie and they didn’t disappoint here as Golden State played without Draymond Green who leads the team in rebounds and assists, and Shaun Livingston. However, Golden State recorded 38 assists and 46 rebounds against Clippers 24 assists and 37 rebounds. Without Chris Paul, the numbers in the assists column were bound to shrink as the league’s 10th highest assist maker of all time continues to nurse a finger injury. Key point here is the Warriors were faced with adversity but triumphed not once but twice but the Clippers failed to do same.
Much like this season, the 2014-2015 season had Rockets lead Los Angeles in the standings as James Harden was on on a tear seriously gunning for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award. The two sides met in the semifinals where Los Angeles took a 3-1 lead in the best of seven series before a historic collapse/comeback depending on where you belong caused the Clippers to miss out on the conference final. Had it been Los Angeles on the losing end in that series, there is much to believe the side wouldn’t have been able to mount a challenge not to talk of overturning the deficit.
In the heat of midseason trades, New York Knicks Carmelo Anthony has been mentioned as a potential target with his fractious relationship with Team President Phil Jackson a major reason for his unhappy stay in the Big Apple recently. Aside, what is bound to be a failed plot from the get go because of Anthony’s tendency to dominate the ball like Paul and to a lesser extent Blake Griffin, adding Anthony changes nothing about the team’s mental state.
What the team needs is a fresh perspective going forward and that could be some months away specifically in the offseason when Griffin and Paul could be free agents should they decline the final season of their respective contracts. Should both decline the options, management could trade Jordan to start a full rebuild around players with a fresher mentality.
