When ESPN surveyed some front office people and scouts about which teams had the worst offseason, the Clippers came in third — they lost Paul George this summer to the 76ers and replaced him with Nicholas Batum and Derrick Jones Jr. The consensus has been this is a team about to take a step back in a deep West — they might not even make the playoffs.
That’s not how Tyronn Lue sees it, as he told Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.
“When you lose a guy of Paul George’s stature, instantly people (think), ‘Oh, they can’t win’ or ‘They’re not going to be competitive.’ But that just challenges me even more. OK, people are counting us out or people don’t think we’re going to be good. That right there just gives me an extra dose of (motivation). I can’t wait to prove everybody wrong.”
Lue said he felt energized after spending the summer with USA Basketball and helping it win gold at the Paris Olympics (something he said after being on Steve Kerr’s staff at the FIBA World Cup a summer ago).
He’s also got James Harden for an entire training camp (the Clippers traded for him a few weeks into last season).
“Having to learn (how to best use him) on the fly was tough... What he’s shown us is that we can run a pick-and-roll… scoring the basketball, making plays for each other, making it easy for everybody to play.”
Combine that with a healthy Kawhi Leonard (who was sent home from Team USA but Lue said will be good to go for training camp), some better depth, and Jeff Van Gundy as a lead assistant and defensive coordinator, and the Clippers will be good.
How good depends on the health of Leonard and Harden and the level they can sustain over 82 games. However, without George, it’s difficult to envision the Clippers as contenders in a West 12 deep with teams that expect to be part of the eight playoff spots. That said, with the energy of a new building and still plenty of talent on the roster, sleep on these Clippers at your own risk.
