You see them regularly on the Sportscenter Top 10 and hear about them constantly on your Facebook and Twitter feeds, but questions still remain regarding that other Los Angeles basketball team. Although spectacularly exciting and normally highly competitive, the public wants to know if they can count on the Clippers to do real damage after the regular season ends in April.
The Clips have not only been the redheaded stepchild of Los Angeles basketball throughout the years, but also a league-wide joke for decades. Poor decisions like the drafting of Danny Manning and Michael Olowokandi have haunted the organization. Glimpses of hope like the times when Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson ran the floor together have come and gone quickly.
The turning point for this organization might have come on December 14th though. That day may end up being a memorable event for a franchise that previously would have rather had a memory erasing device like Tommy Lee Jones' in “Men in Black” than a team almanac.
That day, all-star point guard Chris Paul was traded to the team in exchange for several pieces. The teaming of Paul, arguably the best facilitator in the NBA, with rising star and reigning Rookie of the Year Blake Griffin, spelled change for a franchise in need of improvement.
Now, the Clippers are trying to cast themselves as a team to fear in the league, and they are doing a fairly good job. They currently sit atop the Pacific Division with a 12-6 record and have proved to be a reputable team. If you take into consideration that they haven't even sniffed the top two spots of the division since the 2005-2006 season, this is a huge accomplishment.
They have earned valuable wins over several “powerful” teams such as Miami, Dallas, Denver, and Portland, and even beat their L.A. tormentors. They also have a knack for scoring, with five players averaging double-digits a night. In addition, they have proven that they can win at home with a 10-2 record, all the while taking the league by storm on a nightly basis with electrifying highlights.
Although their leading scorer and rebounder is one of the youngest guys on the team at a ripe age of 22 and only in his third season, they do have the benefit of some experience. That experience includes two NBA Champions, Chauncey Billups and Caron Butler, and a few visits to the postseason by Chris Paul and Mo Williams. This veteran leadership should bode well when they reach the promised land of May and June basketball.
On the flip side, there are some red flags.
Great teams win on the road, and the Clippers haven't fared well away from the Staples Center. Currently, they hold a 2-4 road record including blowout losses of 25 at San Antonio and 29 at Utah.
Another critical weakness is their free throw shooting. They are horrendous from the charity stripe at 66%, the second worst team percentage in the league. Griffin is mostly to blame for the inadequacy, shooting a Shaq-like 50.8% on 7.4 free throws a game. Free throw shooting becomes crucial in big games, and this will have to improve for them to be a factor late in the season.
One thing that is peculiar is the resemblance between this new-school Clippers team and the Phoenix Suns of the mid-2000's.
The similarities are striking.
An expert pass-first point guard with a knack for scoring, teamed with a rising star who has freakish athleticism. The Steve Nash-Amare Stoudemire partnership was a deadly one for years that included a lot of wins and some amazing highlight clips.
One thing it did not include was a ring.
Ironically, Amare was in his third season with the Suns and was 22 years old during the 2004-2005 campaign when the Suns finally took off. They had their first 60-win season and made their first of two trips to the Western Conference Finals that year.
Eventually, they fell to more methodical teams. The Spurs took them out and went on to win the title in 2005, and the Mavericks took them out before falling to the Heat in 2006. They continued to knock at the door in the ensuing years, but would never get back to the conference finals. Eventually, the pieces began to fall and they gave up on that regime.
The Clippers hope to differentiate themselves from those Suns teams, and a growing base of support for “Lob City” is rooting them on. Only time will tell if they have what it takes to be a serious contender, and not just a group of entertaining stars.
A clue of future success or failure might be in their upcoming travels, with seven of their next eight games coming on the road. It can start with a vengeful statement to the Utah Jazz, who gave them their worst loss of the season merely two weeks ago in Salt Lake City.
