Bold Actions in Los Angeles by Lakers and Clippers ...
... dramatically changing the NBA Western Conference landscape.
latimes.com
This wasn’t about words. This was about action. The Clippers moved in silence as they assembled the kind of NBA-altering night that is almost incomprehensible.
Last year, the Clippers wowed their fans with a team that didn’t have a single All-Star appearance. Friday night, in a blink, they added two players with nine All-Star appearances and eight All-NBA awards between them.
“They rocked the world,” said a Western Conference scout who spoke anonymously because his team wouldn’t like him saying such a thing publicly.
Kawhi Leonard isn’t a Laker. He’s not a Toronto Raptor. He’s a Clipper. And, after a massive spending splurge, so is Paul George.
Two years after the Lakers and Clippers embarrassingly failed to put a single a player into an All-Star game they co-hosted at Staples Center, four of the league’s best seven or so players will be playing for the Lakers and the Clippers when next season begins.
The teams did it by sacrificing almost everything they had, leveraging their futures for the chance at present-day glory.
For the Clippers, no matter what anyone says in the upcoming days, it couldn’t have been that hard of a decision.
By dealing Blake Griffin to Detroit in January of last year, they began moving down this path, collecting young players and draft picks while still playing winning basketball. In Steve Ballmer, they had an owner willing to do what it takes to win paired with a championship-level coach in Doc Rivers and one of the most robust front offices in the league.
Publicly, the Clippers talked about how deals like the Griffin trade — and the shocking mid-season trade of Tobias Harris this year — were about providing options. They wanted to be financially flexible enough to sign a star, to be asset-rich enough to maybe trade for one, and to have enough young players developing in house to be competitive.
But privately, executives around the league sniffed out a clearer path. Virtually everyone in the NBA knew the Clippers were after Leonard. They wondered if they’d be able to pair him with Kevin Durant. They guessed that the player-and-pick-rich Clippers might even make a run at Anthony Davis. There was a sense that the Clippers could quickly be sprinting into serious championship contention.
Play it out long term with the young guys? It was a good option — but never the best one. The best plan to win big immediately involved getting a star, and then getting another one.
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The second the Clippers realized how good a chance they had at getting Leonard — whenever that was — players like Gilgeous-Alexander and assets like first-round picks became expendable. Because when you get someone like Leonard, a two-time NBA Finals most valuable player, and maybe the best player in the world right now, you don’t waste time. You act.
Every Clippers draft pick from here to the invention of the flying car will be headed to the Oklahoma City Thunder as compensation for George, who, like Leonard, is a two-way savant capable of winning games with his jumpers just as he will with his footwork and wingspan on defense. Forget flexibility. Kiss those assets goodbye. Go and win now, while the window is open.
It’s a lesson the Lakers learned last season, valuing flexibility, internal assets and moving forward with an unbalanced team around a ready-to-win star in LeBron James. They had a host of contract-seeking veterans and a handful of former lottery picks that were demoted from franchise saviors to supporting pieces faster than Klutch Sports could hit send on the Tweet announcing James’ arrival in Los Angeles.
To general manager Rob Pelinka’s credit, overpay for Davis or not, he couldn’t afford to waste another year of James playing at a championship level. Like the Clippers’ deal for George, urgency and an opportunity to do something special made it easy to move assets out the door.
It’s why no one will need to care about an NBA draft in Los Angeles until midway through President Suri Cruise’s first term.
Because they had to wait on Leonard — and really, if the Lakers thought they had a real shot to sign Leonard, they had to wait — they have now started to round out their roster with what’s left in a picked-over free-agency pool. It was a cost they had to pay, a bet they had to make. Same for the Clippers.
Inside the team’s Playa Vista facility, there’s a trophy case at the end of the main hallway. Inside the glass, the four ping pong balls that landed the Clippers Griffin in the draft lottery are proudly displayed.
It was a huge moment for the franchise, a chance to get a true star to help launch the team toward credibility. They got that opportunity because they lost 59 games the year before. But Friday’s injection of talent into the organization is sweeter. It’s not the result of good luck. It’s not the result of blind luck. They won Blake Griffin. They earned Leonard and George.
Team executives hesitated to use the word “pitch” to describe how they planned to approach Leonard once they got their chance. “Pitch” seemed a little desperate, a little dishonest, to them. They had hoped their past decisions, the culture that had been created, the strengths from ownership down to the court, a combination of a great sports market and a great organization, would be better than any “pitch.”
So, without boasting or tipping their hand; in fact, without saying much at all, the Clippers rocked the NBA.
LeBron James. Anthony Davis. Paul George. Kawhi Leonard.
Forget the future. Now is way too much fun. <<
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- Eric L. - |
