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Report: Clippers Interested In KG?

February 4, 2013  ·  9:34AM





HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – The countdown to crazy season in the NBA is on.

Anything goes during crazy season, no rumor is too out there and no anonymous source is out off-limits. That’s what adds all of the spice to the process.

The very first and perhaps most intriguing report of the countdown season comes from The Sporting News, which has multiple sources claiming that the Los Angeles Clippers are interested in making a deal for Boston Celtics All-Star Kevin Garnett. The deal would reportedly involve the Clippers giving up promising young point guard Eric Bledsoe and veteran swingman Caron Butler.

The obligatory refuting of these claims are already in full effect, with ESPN’s Chris Broussard reporting that there have been no “trade talks” between the Clippers and Celtics, which of course would force someone to come up with a clear-cut definition of “trade talks.”

But there is no doubt that both the Clippers, losers of five of their last seven games with injured All-Star point guard Chris Paul on the shelf, and the Celtics, who will finish this season without their own All-Star point guard, Rajon Rondo, are searching for solutions. Sean Deveney of The Sporting News made a compelling case for these two franchises doing business in his initial report:

Celtics officials have made no decisions about the future, even with rookie power forward Jared Sullinger (back surgery) joining point guard Rajon Rondo (knee) last week in seeing their seasons end.

The Celtics came into Sunday’s game on a four-game winning streak and will wait until closer to the trade deadline to decide whether to keep this team together. The deadline is 3 p.m. ET Feb. 21.

For now, the Clippers wait on their injured guards. [Chauncey] Billups is working his way back from a foot injury. There is no timetable for the return of star point guard Paul from a knee injury. [Jamal] Crawford, the team’s sixth man, is wearing an industrial-strength facemask to protect his broken nose.

The Clippers are a battered bunch and losers of five of their previous seven games.

Coach Vinny Del Negro hopes to get Paul and Billups back during the team’s eight-game trip, which runs through Feb. 11.

“Right now, it is all about winning games,” Del Negro said. “We need to get guys back to win at a higher rate than we are right now, then we were used to at the beginning of the season. It’s a long season; you have to manage it the right way. When we think we’re getting everyone back, it seems like, so far this year, someone’s been injured. You have to manage that. You have to take the highs and the lows.”

But still, the Clippers are going for it. And why not? When healthy, they count themselves among NBA title contenders. That’s saying something for a franchise that had long been considered not just among the NBA’s worst, but in all of sports.

Considering, too, the struggles of the Los Angeles Lakers, the Clippers see this season as a chance to reach at least the Western Conference finals and in doing so to reorder the hoops hierarchy in LA.

Garnett, who makes his offseason home in Malibu, has a no-trade clause in his contract and two years left on his contract. So there is that one, gigantic hurdle to deal with. He’s not going anywhere he doesn’t want to go.

But he could have worse options than joining a Clippers team that could be one or two healthy stars away from making a championship run. The championship window in Boston is closed, no matter how hard Celtics coach Doc Rivers tries to fight it.

Garnett has a limited amount of time left to chase a second title to pair with the one he won with the Celtics in 2008. Rolling with the Clippers could be his best and last chance to add to his already Hall of Fame worthy resume. For a player as consumed by winning as Garnett has been his entire career, it would be hard to dismiss an opportunity like this were it actually on the table.

And that brings us back to the core of crazy season in the NBA. No matter how far-fetched an idea seems in theory, the possibilities will get floated to the basketball-loving public between now and the Feb. 21 trade deadline.

The countdown to crazy season in the NBA is on!

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Blogtable: The Clips Without CP3

January 30, 2013  ·  10:30AM

Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Week 14: Has it clicked for the Lakers? | A healthy star who’s struggling | Clips without CP3

What’s the prognosis for the Clips without a fully healthy Chris Paul?

Steve Aschburner: Prognosis for the second half? Maybe the Clippers can hang onto their Pacific Division crown to secure a top seed. But if Paul still were bothered by his knee come the playoffs, I think they’d be in trouble. Eric Bledsoe is solid, but Paul’s too important — distributing, defending, closing — to think the Clippers could play at or near their potential through even a first-round series. You know the saying about playoff defenses taking away your first and second options? L.A.’s foes would be able to focus on its second and third options without Paul as a full factor.

Fran Blinebury: About the same as the prognosis for the pole business without firemen and strippers.

Chris Paul, by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Chris Paul, by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Jeff Caplan: Prognosis Negative. The Clippers won’t go very far without a full strength CP3. Just like last season when they were swept out of in the West semis by the Spurs when Paul and Blake Griffin were banged up. The Clips are extraordinarily deep and talented, but without Paul to handle the ball, to exert control over the offense when the game slows down and execution is key, L.A. won’t go far.

Scott Howard-Cooper: The championship hopes are over. The aspirations for a Western Conference title are over. Yes, the Clippers are deep, and, yes, they would have Chauncey Billups (eventually) and Eric Bledsoe to take over at point guard. But Paul is one of the special talents in the league, a threat as a passer or shooter, a defender, a leader. There is still a long time before the question becomes real. But for the sake of conversation, the Clippers would not be able to overcome CP3 laboring in the playoffs.

John Schuhmann: If he’s playing and not 100 percent, then they’re still a pretty good team, because that, at least, keeps their great second unit intact. Their depth is most effective when their starters are playing and their defense is at its best when Eric Bledsoe is out there with Matt Barnes, Lamar Odom and Ronny Turiaf. But they’re obviously not nearly on the same level as the Spurs or Thunder if Paul’s not at his best. He’s the engine of their top-five offense.

Sekou Smith: Well, if they don’t have him at full strength for the remainder of the season, that’s a game changer. As deep as they are, Paul is the heart and soul of that team. Eric Bledsoe is a fantastic young talent and great things could be on his horizon in the coming years. But the Clippers need an experienced and steady hand at the controls down the stretch and into the playoffs. Take a look at Boston and see how quickly a team’s fortunes change when they don’t have their All-Star point guard in the mix. Better yet, just go back and look at the difference in the Bulls without Derrick Rose. The Clippers would be in a similar situation without Paul healthy for the duration of this season. With CP3 they have a chance to compete for a spot in the Western Conference finals and ultimately a championship. Without him … they’ll be fishing long before then.

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Back Away From The Edge, Clipper Fans

January 25, 2013  ·  11:46AM

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HANG TIME, Texas — From Bill Walton’s feet to Danny Ferry’s bolting for Italy to the choice of Michael Olowokandi to practically any decade of Donald Sterling’s long and painful stewardship, it is practically built into their DNA.

Fear! Dread! Panic!

So maybe you can’t blame Clippers fans for seeking out a tall mast from which to jump.

But we will.

Relax.

Yes, it’s now a three-game losing streak that has your boys slipping behind the Spurs into third place in the Western Conference playoff race. Yes, the latest blow came at the hands of the lowly Suns, who are more barren than an Arizona desert and are memorizing the name of their new coach (Lindsey Hunter).

No, the ball’s not going into the basket as often as they’d like. No, Blake Griffin wasn’t zooming toward the rim to catch alley-oops for dunks, wasn’t attacking the basket and wasn’t taking enough shots.

Come on, surely you can take off your sunglasses to see that handsome young man in the dapper outfit sitting over there on the bench, not far from coach Vinny Del Negro.

Meet Chris Paul, fire-starter, All-Star and MVP candidate whose stock is only soaring higher as he waits for a sore knee to feel better.

Maybe everyone was fooled when the Clippers swept a three-game road trip a week ago with Paul on the sidelines nursing his knee. But does anyone really think this team, this season, this talk about the Clippers as real championship contenders doesn’t revolve around CP3?

Everything the Clippers try to do with their offense is based on having the ball in Paul’s hands, letting him make plays, buckets and decisions, as Arash Markazi of ESPNLosAngeles notes:

The Clippers don’t want to make any excuses while Paul is out, and there’s certainly a chance he could be out for a week as he was the last time he sat out with a bruised right kneecap. But with the Clippers up by one with 7:45 left in the game, the Clippers sure could have used Paul or at least Chauncey Billups running the offense to close the game out. Eric Bledsoe is a great change-of-pace point guard and can give the Clippers a spark in the second and third quarters, but Del Negro likes to lean on Paul (and Billups when he’s healthy) early and late in games and it’s not hard to see why.

“All that stuff changes with Chris or Chauncey out there,” Del Negro said. “There’s no excuse. We were in this game and whoever is out there I have confidence in and they got to make the plays.”

Paul is the one who gets the ball to all of the other Clippers in the best position for them to score. Paul is the one who creates the open spaces for open shots. Paul is the one who turns them from a collection of diverse talent into a team.

Yes, there are games that you can win over the course of a long season without your star player. The Clippers did that in going 3-0 through Memphis, Houston and Minnesota. But that was never the point.

Imagine the Heat without LeBron James or the Thunder without Kevin Durant. Heck, even imagine the Three Stooges without Curly.

The show still goes on. But nobody really comes to see Shemp.

We don’t need laboratory slides to know that panic is in your blood, Clipper fans.

Just relax and know that CP3 is just collecting a few more MVP votes this week.

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1,000 Reasons For Grant Hill To Smile

January 16, 2013  ·  2:09AM

HOUSTON – One thousand games.

There was a time when it seemed more likely he might undergo 1,000 surgeries.

“I’m still here,” said Grant Hill, his feet soaking in a tub of ice that seemed to be melting from the smile on his face.

The fact that he’s still anywhere near an NBA court, let alone running up and down one, is an act of love and stubbornness.

Players like Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant have been fortunate to be free of major injuries and blew through their first 1,000 games like they were in the EZ-Pass lane on a highway.

For Hill, it’s been the long, bumpy road that could have made him want to pull over and get off so many times.

“Not when you can do this,” Hill said on Monday night after a 117-109 win over the Rockets gave his Clippers their 30th win of the season and kept them just behind the Thunder for the best record in the league.

This was just one layup early in the second quarter. This was just 16 minutes off the bench. This was just his third game of the season after a bruised bone in his right knee forced him out for the first three months of the schedule.

But this was also chasing that passion that’s driven Hill for as long as he can remember.

Fact is, he probably wouldn’t still have been sitting there in the visitors’ locker room inside the Toyota Center three months past his 40th birthday if everything had gone according to plan as the Duke All-American, the 1995 co-Rookie of the Year, the seven-time NBA All-Star.

Here he is trying to work himself back into game shape for an 18th season because he had so many of them (in what should have been the prime of his career) taken away by ankle and knee surgeries, by a staph infection that could have taken away his life.

“At a time like this, on a night like this, I think about the relationships, the lessons learned,” Hill said. “All the little things become more significant and those are the things I take away.”

The surgeons who kept repairing his body and the trainers and the therapists and the ballboys who did all of the things that let him continue to get back out onto the court time after time. All of the coaches, who gave him space and all of the players who gave him their embrace.

From 2000 through 2006, Hill missed 356 of a possible 492 games. That’s what makes nights like this one still special.

“It goes by so fast,” said veteran teammate Lamar Odom. “One minute you’re coming into the league as a kid ready to take on the world. Then look over there at (Grant) and you can see what it feels like to have this life slipping through your hands. You don’t ever want to let it go. It’s special.”

How fitting then that this might be a very special Clippers team, the kind that could take Hill to the one place he’s never been in the NBA from Detroit to Orlando to Phoenix — reaching out for a real shot at a championship.

“When we lost to the Lakers in the conference finals (2010) and Amar’e (Stoudemire) left, I kinda went, ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t in the cards,’ ” he said. “But Phoenix trying to rebuild might have been the best thing for me personally. I got a chance to come here.

“A lot goes into the winning. There are variables. You need the organization to assemble the talent. You need the coaching. You need the talent to recognize the opportunity that’s there and to give up a little bit of themselves as individuals, and you need lots of things to go right. You’ve got to stay healthy, you know.”

Who knows that better than Hill? He looks at the empty locker stalls a few feet away where 36-year-old Chauncey Billups is still recovering from Achilles’ tendon surgery and tendinitis in his foot, where All-Star and MVP candidate Chris Paul sat out his second straight game with a sore right knee. Hill is the second-oldest player in the league and hasn’t forgotten a year or a month or a day that it took to get here.

“I feel like after all the things that I’ve been through, it’s a reward to be on this team,” he said. “So I’ve been champing at the bit the last three months to get back out there. I’m excited, but also mad at myself for not being where I want to be. I think this team has a chance to be special.”

Grant Hill wiggles his toes in the ice.

One thousand games never felt so good.

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Real Clippers Starting To Take Shape

January 13, 2013  ·  3:45PM

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Grant Hill finally made his Clippers debut Saturday, entering, strangely, at the start of the fourth quarter of a close game and playing six minutes. That was the encouraging news from the otherwise disappointing development of the 104-101 loss to the Magic in Los Angeles.

Now the Clippers wait on the return of Chauncey Billups. That will potentially be the big news.

Hill is an important boost for the defense, with the ability to guard multiple positions once he builds to full speed after being sidelined since exhibition play by a bruised right knee. He won’t be a huge difference maker by the numbers because the Clips are tracking to a top-five finish in opponent shooting, but the versatility is invaluable and gives a deep team more lineup options.

There is no timetable for Billups rejoining the lineup after battling tendinitis in the left foot. There is, however, Chris Paul in anticipation.

As much as Paul was excited about finally getting small forward Hill in uniform, he is especially anxious for the chance to play alongside Billups in the backcourt again and the accompanying opportunity to play off the ball more. CP3, a threat with the shot as well as the pass, has been imagining the possibilities for weeks.

Bad news for the rest of the league, in other words. Paul is already playing at an MVP level and still sees the chance for a bigger impact than he made the first 37 games.

“It gets the ball out of my hands,” Paul said recently. “Willie (Green, the current starter) is unbelievable, but Willie’s a shooting guard…. When we get out there and it’s me and Chauncey, he can bring the ball up the court. Now I’m on the wing and everybody’s not just looking at me.”

Hill’s first non-exhibition action since April 24 with the Suns resulted in a standing ovation from the Staples Center crowd when he checked in, followed by two points (two free throws, three missed field goals) and two rebounds while playing with a cap on minutes. But the 40-year-old who rebuffed several others offers to join the Clippers as a free agent in the summer reported no pain around the right knee.

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Posted in 2012 / Comments (85) /

Billups To Suit Up, Start For Clippers

November 28, 2012  ·  4:21PM




HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS – If veteran guard Chauncey Billups can do anything to cure what ails the Los Angeles Clippers, losers of four straight games, we will all find out tonight.

Billups is expected to make his season debut tonight against Kevin Love and the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center (10:30 p.m. ET on NBA TV), per Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports:

It’s an injury return that couldn’t come at a better time for the Clippers, who have found themselves embroiled in one mess after another lately during their mini-slump.

Vinny Del Negro is suddenly on the hot seat (his normal spot, nothing new) and the Clippers are struggling to find the rhythm they had when they kicked off the season on a 8-2 surge.

Chris Paul was critical of his team’s effort, and some people feel his head coach, Vinny Del Negro, after Monday’s loss to the New Orleans Hornets. He even tweeted about it, creating an uproar with words that lacked the context of his more nuanced reaction that only some seemed to pay attention to:

“We lost to a very … let me choose my words … not a very talented team but well coached,” Paul said. “I watch them play every game that they play. One thing about [coach] Monty [Williams] is they’re going to play hard. If you watch their games, they been to a couple of overtimes and they’ve only been in a couple of blowouts, which were against Denver and Oklahoma City. They’re going to play hard. … With those guys playing like that and us waiting until the fourth quarter to turn it on, it’s going to be tough.”

Paul’s praise for his former coach, Williams, was seen as a direct shot at Del Negro.

The return of the Clippers’ most prominent leader not named Paul, however, could be the infusion of positive energy needed to get this team back on track.

Of course, Billups hasn’t played since he tore his left Achilles tendon last Feb. 6. Before that injury he was playing a critical role alongside Paul, averaging 15 points and four assists, in one of the most dynamic backcourts in the league.

Now he joins not only Paul, but his replacement, Willie Green, and bench stars Jamal Crawford and Eric Bledsoe, in what has to be one of the deepest and most explosive backcourt rotations in all of basketball.

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Clippers Make An Early Stand

November 20, 2012  ·  1:47PM

 

The original plan was to wait for the Clippers to end this challenging stretch of the schedule and take stock of whatever remained of their spirits before declaring redemption. But then came Monday night in San Antonio, after several other nights in other places, and the original plan went out the window.

The Clippers beat the Spurs for the second time in 12 days. And the Heat. And, on the second night of a back-to-back, the Trail Blazers. Plus the Hawks. In the six games since doubts were raised about their focus, they produced six wins.

So, taking stock: The Clippers are more of a legitimate threat in the West than ever because they responded as a title contender should.

Being placed in the top tier of the West as the regular season opened, as the Clippers should have been by all, is one thing. Actually digging deep to earn the status is quite another … and they just broke out the big shovels. That makes this is no ordinary win streak.

They were inconsistent very early in a way that had nothing to do with missing the injured Chauncey Billups or Grant Hill, nothing to do with working in several key newcomers, or nothing to do with the schedule. They’d beat the Grizzlies and beat the Lakers … and then lose to the Warriors and Cavaliers.

The Clippers had a veteran team and the kind of leadership other teams dream of, and yet they couldn’t sustain the energy at the start of the season, when routines were being established. What would that say for their focus in February and March?

Players clearly understood this and answered. Pushing back began with a home win against the Spurs, which would have been response enough — except that the Clippers pushing. After the bookend win Monday night at San Antonio, they had improved to 8-2, not to mention 5-0 against the Heat, Grizzlies, Lakers and Spurs.

These are still treacherous times on the schedule – the Thunder, Nets and Hawks are up next, all on the road (with Atlanta as the second night of a back-to-back). It is also still very early on the calendar. After an undependable first week, the last six games are an important barometer … as long as the Clippers don’t completely go in the tank the next three.

It is particularly early on the calendar in their case, given what so far has been the season-long absence of Billups (torn Achilles’ tendon) and Hill (bruised knee), with no target date for a return. The Clippers’ bench has a clear advantage over most teams, Chris Paul is playing at a high level and Jamal Crawford provides instant offense as sixth man. The defense is going good, too. But there is still no way of knowing how good the Clippers can be, not until they return to full strength.

Their response after that slow start is a good indication, though, of their talent and, more importantly, their mindset.

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Early Run Of Injuries Taking Its Toll

November 16, 2012  ·  1:42PM


HANG TIME SOUTHWEST – The Dallas Mavericks signed journeyman big man Eddy Curry out of desperation at the center position with Chris Kaman injured. When he returned, Dallas cut Curry and signed out-of-work Troy Murphy because power forward took top billing on the depth chart with Dirk Nowitzki rehabbing from surgery.

The Minnesota Timberwolves, down four starters and six rotation players to injury, signed Josh Howard off the street Thursday. The Toronto Raptors are reportedly looking into unemployed 3-point shooter Mickael Pietrus to plug into their injury-depleted roster.

Entering just the third week of the 2012-13 season, injuries — many to some of the game’s biggest and brightest stars — are the overwhelming story line as overworked team medical staffs are on 24-hour notice.

Both conferences can field a veritable All-Star team, position-by-position, of players that have recently returned from injury, were injured prior to the season or are injured now.

The West: Steve Nash, Ricky Rubio, Eric Gordon, Shawn Marion, Chauncey Billups, Kevin Love, Nowitzki, Andrew Bogut.

The East: Derrick Rose, Rajon Rondo, John Wall, Kyle Lowry, Dwyane Wade, Danny Granger, Amar’e Stoudemire, Andrew Bynum, Nene.

Yet that’s hardly all of the NBA’s wounded. Here’s more of those who have been, still are or just got injured: Gerald Wallace, Gerald Henderson, Mario Chalmers, Devin Harris, A.J. Price, Nikola Pekovic, Kirk Hinrich, Grant Hill, J.J. Barea, Brandon Roy, Chase Budinger, Anthony Davis, Steve Blake, Brandon Rush, Darrell Arthur, Channing Frye, Landry Fields, Iman Shumpert, Alan Anderson, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Avery Bradley.

When Minnesota came to Dallas earlier this week with five players out (and Pekovic’s sprained ankle in the third quarter would make it six), coach Rick Adelman engaged in something of a “Who’s on First” rapid-fire Q & A with beat writer Jerry Zgoda.

Jerry: Who’s your backup 3 and your backup 2?

Rick: We don’t have a backup 3. I’m going to start Malcolm (Lee) tonight at the 2 and bring Alexey (Shved) off the bench at both spots. And then at the 3, I don’t know, we’re going to slide somebody there.

Jerry: Have to play AK (Andrei Kirilenko) 48 minutes?

Rick: I don’t want to do to that. We don’t need to wear him out, too.

Jerry: Can you get five or six (minutes) out of (assistant coach Terry) Porter?

Rick: I don’t think so.

A year ago, the worry around the league was how an abbreviated training camp following the hasty resolution to the lockout and then a compacted, 66-game schedule would affect player health. With a full, month-long camp this time around and a complete slate of eight preseason games, this spate of injuries is as unexpected as unfortunate.

Entering this weekend’s games, only the San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder among the league’s 30 teams boast clean injury reports, and 22 list more than one injured player.

When the Mavericks play the Indiana Pacers tonight, they expect to get Marion back after a five-game absence with a sprained left knee. Nowitzki will remain out as will Indiana’s Granger. For Dallas, it’s been a strange run of not only playing shorthanded, but facing teams with at least one starter sidelined. They played, in order: Toronto (Lowry), New York (Stoudemire), Charlotte (Henderson), Minnesota (Love, Rubio, Roy, Budinger) and Washington (Wall, Nene).

“The league’s not going to stop and wait for you,” Adelman said the other night about his team’s rash of injuries. “A lot teams are having the same issues with major injuries. As a coaching staff you can’t coach the people that aren’t there. You only can coach the people that are there.”

And so it goes in a very strange first month in the NBA.

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Blogtable: Are The Clips Contenders?

November 14, 2012  ·  11:18AM




Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes to weigh in on the three most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

Blogtable Week 3: The new-look Lakers | Does a coach matter? | Are the Clips legit?

Sekou’s team-crush aside, have you seen anything that convinces you the Clippers are a title threat? If so, what?

Steve Aschburner: Nope, haven’t seen it yet. But then, I haven’t seen much that would convince me of that with most teams yet. Too early. We’ll know more about the Clippers in 10 days, for instance, after their trip to San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Brooklyn and Atlanta. But what has been impressive has been L.A.’s bench, which carried them past the Hawks in the first game the Clippers failed to score 100 points. Jamal Crawford, Eric Bledsoe, Matt Barnes and Rony Turiaf all fit, and if Lamar Odom could approach his form of 2-3 seasons ago, look out. That depth will help the starters over the long haul. And if Grant Hill and Chauncey Billups can return and be effective in shorter minutes, well, then there’ll be some serious convincing going on.

Fran Blinebury: If the Thunder offense continues to look discombobulated, if the Lakers can’t flip the switch with D’Antoni, if one of the aging Spurs suddenly pulls something, why not the Clippers?  Jamal Crawford has juiced the offense, DeAndre Jordan has raised his game and Chris Paul is still Chris Paul.  But I still want more out of Blake Griffin at both ends to be sold.

Jeff Caplan: Yeah, I like this team. I don’t know that Blake Griffin is developing the type of dominant, low-post game so many of us envision, but they are a deep, deep team and will still get veteran leader Chauncey Billups back at some point. Six players are averaging in double figures and they’re shooting nearly 50 percent as a team while holding opponents to 43 percent. I do like the progression of DeAndre Jordan‘s game as well. Jordan and Griffin’s terrible free-throw shooting is scary and I still feel like they swoon in and out of games at times. But, with Chris Paul running the show, lots of young legs and good shooting and the West wide open, this group can contend.

Scott Howard-Cooper: I have seen Chris Paul early this season, I have seen Jamal Crawford early this season, I have seen someone appearing to be Eric Bledsoe go past in a blur early this season. So, yes, the Clippers have something. But I have not seen Grant Hill or Chauncey Billups, so it’s difficult to say for sure exactly what the Clips have, and the focus has also been inconsistent. It would not be a shock if they win the West, if that answers the question. I just don’t think they are at the very top of the list of contenders. And Sekou does not have a team crush. He has a city crush. He’s got the Los Angeles D-Fenders sweeping through the playoffs if it gets him to L.A. to cover the NBA D-League championship series.

John Schuhmann: They currently rank in the top 10 in both offensive and defensive efficiency, which is where you need to be if you want to call yourself a contender. Most important is the defensive improvement, which really showed in last Wednesday’s win over the Spurs, just one of their three quality wins so far. But it’s early and we’ll see if they can sustain that over 82 games. The one thing I don’t like about the Clips is the lack of depth on the frontline, especially with how bad Lamar Odom has looked thus far. If they can’t count on him, they really have nothing behind Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan.

Sekou Smith: The Memphis “Hang Time” Grizzlies are Exhibit A in my “team-crush” case. But the Clippers absolutely have the necessary combination of superstar talent (Chris Paul, Blake Griffin), quality depth (Jamal Crawford, Eric Bledsoe, Matt Barnes, etc.) and seasoned leadership (Chauncey Billups, Caron Butler and Paul) required for inclusion to the championship-caliber conversation. There are only a handful of teams every season that possess those things. The Clippers join the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers as the only teams in the Western Conference in that conversation. The Clippers have also shown in their bouts against the highest quality competition that they are prepared to battle with the best whenever the occasion calls for it, which is always a telling sign, even in the early stages of a season.

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Clippers Need To Find Their Focus

November 6, 2012  ·  3:12PM





The Clippers’ loss to the Cavaliers is not inexcusable, even with the game at Staples Center and young Cleveland playing for the third time in three cities over four nights. That flammable Kyrie Irving-Dion Waiters backcourt is going to turn a lot of opponents into scorched Earth.

The inconsistent early-season energy of the Clippers is inexcusable. A veteran roster, an envious level of leadership with Chris Paul, Chauncey Billups and Grant Hill, several nonstop workers around them and the emotional catapult of imposing their will on the Lakers in the season-opener. Yet here they are, 2-2, with the real schedule challenge ahead.

The Clippers went promising after beating the Grizzlies by nine and the Lakers by 10 to losing to the Warriors by four with Golden State on the second night of a back-to-back. Andrew Bogut was held out to help his recovering ankle, and Stephen Curry missed 10 of 16 shots while totaling more turnovers than assists. That was a giveback. Wasting the chance to respond against the Cavaliers, that was bad.

A superior team locked in, as the Clippers should have been coming off the Warriors defeat, would have stepped on Cleveland. Yet on Monday, the Cavs scored 31 points in the opening quarter, had 84 after three periods and went on to a 108-101 victory. The visitors were not even especially sharp — 43.5-percent shooting and 19 turnovers – and L.A. still couldn’t keep up. (more…)

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Posted in 2012, HT News / Comments (5) /

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