The LA Clippers Really Messed This Up

The LA Clippers Really Messed This Up

when the LA Clippers came off what most considered to be a better than expected season in 2019 having finished the year with 48 wins making the playoffs after being a lottery team the season prior but 48 wins in a stack Western Conference just leaves you in the middle of the pack with the eight seed having to go up against the dynasty Golden State Warriors who were looking to threee at that time and then that summer the Clippers said this is not good enough either we’re going to truly contend in this conference otherwise we’re going to continue sitting in a Land of mediocrity and with kawh having just gone on to win his second championship and looking to head home to La the Clippers knew they had an opportunity to finally put themselves in a position to get over that hump and finally win their franchise’s first title and Landing one of the best players in the league coming off a championship run of his own but kawh Leonard in order to come to the Clippers instead a team like the Lakers to join LeBron or even stay in Toronto and try to defend the title he wanted assurances that the Clippers meant business in truly assembling a title team and thus he wanted Paul George one of the better two-way players in the game coming off one of his best seasons in OKC where he was a top MVP finalist First Team all NBA first team all defense putting together one of the best two-way playing Duos the league had seen this was kawai’s stipulation in order for him to join the Clippers and the Clippers out of desperation to finally put together a championship team moved Mountains for Kawai and executed one of the biggest trade packages in recent memory where they sent five first round picks four of which were unprotected two pick swaps Danilo galinari and of course Shay guildas Alexander who had just come off a strong rookie season being selected to the all rookie second team a deal that at that time some people said the Thunder were crazy for trading a top 10 if not a top five player in the league to the Clippers to pair him with kawh Leonard but fast forward to today nearly 5 years after said trade the Clippers have yet to make it out of the Western Conference let alone winning an NBA championship two superstars who have consistently been in and out of the lineup due to injuries kawh ler missing the entire 2122 season the last two seasons they’ve gotten bounced in the first round of the playoffs and now after countless rumors of what Paul George is going to do this summer will he remain in La will he be looking to go elsewhere well now we learn that Paul George will not be returning to the Clippers and assign a Max contract with the Philadelphia 76ers to the tune of four years $212 million in otherwise relatively quiet first night in NBA free agency the Domino that needed to fall to set everything else in motion has tumbled over and the Clippers are now left standing trying to determine what to do next for the future of this franchise as always if you’re new to the channel and you like this type of content then be sure to subscribe to help the channel grow and in return I’ll be providing more NBA content like this now it was starting to become more and more clear that as we grew closer to the free agency opening that the relationship between Paul George and the Clippers was starting to wne and the likelihood of Paul George returning was looking more and more remote at first it was believed the Clippers and Paul George would look for a trade of some kind where PG would opt into the final year of his contract request to trade and by going this route it would give Paul George many more options to go to a team that he wanted to as it wouldn’t limit him to only the teams that have cap space but rather a team like the Warriors of the Mavericks hell even the Lakers if they wanted to because these over the cap teams would be acquiring him via a trade instead of signing him as a free agent which they would not be able to do so otherwise but once the deadline passed for Paul George to decide on his player option and then George opted out of the final year of his deal to look for a longer term contract and making him an unrestricted free agent that took all the teams that didn’t have cap space out of the running in the Paul George sweep stakes and really narrowed it down to the Sixers and the magic two teams that had the requisite cap space to sign Paul George to a Max contract but also would be in a position to possibly contend and the magic after having signed contous callwell pop to a threeyear $66 million deal that more or less took the magic out of the running to S PG who was seeking a four-year Max contract it left the team with the most cap space in a team still looking to compete and maximize the prime of Joelle embiid as the front runner to win the Paul George sweep stakes and even though the Clippers still made one last push to try and retain Paul George sides were at an impass on agreeing to an extension and the Clippers issued a public statement that George had said he will not be resigning with the team now what I find odd in all of this and where I think the Clippers really fumbled the bag in these negotiations is that evidently the money itself the annual salary George was looking for at a max deal was not the sticking point it was the number of years that led Paul George to go elsewhere George wanted a four-year deal the Clippers were only willing to give him three and look from the Clipper standpoint I get the hesitation signing a 34-year-old guy to a four-year contract still one of the better players in the league but a player who has had his fair share of injuries throughout his career and giving him Max money through the age of 38 can put you in a very tough spot down the line a contract that could be very hard to move especially in today’s CBA but here’s the thing if you’re the Clippers unless you’re able to execute sign a trade there was literally no benefit of letting Paul George walk because it’s not like you just get $48 million in cap space back on your books no they were already an over the cap team in fact they were the second highest payroll team in the league last season over the second apron letting George walk helps you a little bit from a luxury tax perspective as you now have a little more room to try and stay below the tax aprons but you’re not going to be able to just resign Paul George’s replacement to that three-year max deal that he was looking for no the best you can now do is sign a player to the mid level exception which we now know they’ve done by signing Derrick Jones Jr to a three or $30 million deal which is great by the way a great pickup for them but Derek Jones Jr is not Paul George and so the way I look at it is like you really let one year of a contract negotiation be a sticking point in keeping your All-Star forward and the other thing I don’t get if you’re the Clippers is that this isn’t a situation where okay you look at your roster and you see the team is kind of hit their ceiling and maybe it’s just best to let Paul George walk because maybe it’s time to Pivot and start taking a step back and thinking about the future and building through the draft they don’t have any draft picks to build with for the future the soonest picks they own that aren’t subject to be swapped are in 2030 and 2031 that’s for both first and second round picks so this isn’t a situation in which the Clippers can just tank and start rebuilding they have to try and keep winning they have to try and stay competitive there is no scenario in which they can start rebuilding in the short term unless they blow it up and try and get as much draft Capital as possible for their star players but they threw that away with probably their most valuable trade asset in Paul George and lost him for absolutely nothing you’re not going to be able to get that much for Kawhi Leonard given how injury prony is and now also in his mid-30s and you’re not going to be able to get that much for James Harden at this stage in his career so where do the Clippers even go from here yeah they’ll be a decent team because they still have kawhai and Harden assuming they can stay healthy getting drick Jones Jr is nice yeah maybe they can pull off a signning trade for Demar D rozan which I would welcome as a bulls fan but is that team really a championship level Team all they had to do was give Paul George what he wanted four years Max contract and they could have traded him within the first year while he still had value and if they really didn’t want to keep him longterm or were hesitant that his contract would just be dead money on their books by the end of the deal trade him before then at least then you get something in return but instead you’re now in a position where you lost one of your main stars you have no draft assets to work with for the future and you have two aging stars that aren’t going to move the needle for you in getting you far in a stacked Western Conference I know this sounds super reactionary but letting Paul George go now puts the Clippers as the team with one of the bleakest Futures in the NBA if not the bleakest future and I really do mean that when you look at their roster from top to bottom their cap sheet and their draft capital I would love for someone to convince me otherwise on that point seriously let me know in the comments now for the Sixers do I really think this puts them over the top over a team like the Celtics or even the Knicks no I don’t I do think they’ll be better than they were last year especially if it B can stay healthy but for the Sixers at least they’re trying to maximize Their Stars Prime and win to win instead of just letting it slip away because of some poor contract negotiations where they were fixated on one additional year of a Max contract no this was bad on the Clippers and it’s still going to be a long long time before we see this franchise win a championship let me know what you guys think though let me know in the comments as always be sure to subscribe and I’ll see you in the next one

Breaking down the Paul George singing with the Philadelphia 76ers and why the Clippers fumbled the bag

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