Would they have lost with Del Negro? They beat the Grizz in the playoffs with Del Negro and almost beat them again... The Grizz almost beat the Thunder this year in the playoffs. I don't think we can say if Del Negro would beat the Warriors without Bogut or not... Very debatable. Also Rivers made a number of poor coaching decisions against the Thunder. His speech that the "blown call" (which was the RIGHT call) could be "series defining" didn't do his team any favors. I suspect this season might be their best shot. Houston will be adding more talent, the Thunder may break through this year..
Rivers is overrated. He needs a Thibs-like coach to provide that defense that he needs to elevate the Clips to the next level. If they play elite defense, they WILL be the favorites next year (if the players make improvements within themselves). Thunder will be the Thunder. They will always contend with Durant/WB/Ibaka. Houston isn't going anywhere until it proves it plays defense, at least when it matters. IT doesn't how much talent you add if you don't play defense. Spurs? Who knows. Clips will still contend for the next 3 years. Defense will be the difference whether they will be in the Finals, or exit in the first or 2nd round.
As a Clipper season ticket holder it was a successful season for the team. Doc has changed the culture of the team and also the style of play to make Blake Griffin and D'Andre Jordan into one of the best front courts in the league. They need to work on the chemistry between Chris Paul and the rest of the offense. Chris Paul's tendencies to dribble the ball in place too much and to be an inefficient floor general in the half court offense came back to haunt the team in the playoffs. He blew Game 1 of the GS series in the final 2 minutes and Game 5 of the OKC series in the final 3 minutes. He also played poorly in Game 6 of the OKC series up until the last 5 minutes of the game, as he failed to get the offense moving and drifted back to old tendencies. He had similar issues against Golden State on the road. Contrast that with the epic game 7 against GS and the game 4 comeback against OKC where Paul let the ball flow and Griffin initiated a lot of key plays. The other thing the Clippers need is an upgrade at the wing position. They need both defense and better scoring out of that position.
Defense of course is the difference .... That goes for Houston and Los Angeles both... Will either improve enough? I don't know... As far the Thunder go, this is a very important year for them, at some point you break through or fade into good but not great.
Break through in terms of winning a championship? That's a tough thing to say when the 2 best players are 25-26. Westbrook can definitely still take his game to another level. Ibaka can still improve (or take a bigger role offensively) And their young guys (esp. Jackson, Lamb who played well and got less time with dumb ass Butler now playing, and Adams) hopefully can improve. They'll be a top 2-3 team for at least the next 7-8 year barring injuries, or another Lebron type player. Durant is going to own this league in 3 years.
Blah blah... "Culture changed" and more abstractions that really mean nothing. They edged by the 6th seed Warriors in 7 games without Bogut and lost 4 of the last 5 against the Thunder. The "culture" isn't any different, they are no farther along than 2 years ago... And won a total of 1 more game than last year.
It is very unlikely they will be a top 2-3 team in 7-8 years unless they are winning titles... That is an eternity in the NBA. The Thunder have been knocking on the door the last 3 years ... Westbrook will be a FA soon, and Durant as well....
True, but we rarely see a team with 2 top 5-7 players starting out at age 20-21. And they're only 25-26. And from Durant's MVP speech, they're staying together. The thing is, last year didn't count b/c of WB's injury. 2012 they were NOT the favorites. Spurs had HC. And they weren't beating Lebron. This year, they don't have HC advantage either. Let's see how they do in the next 2 years until we say this team has stagnated. There's still room for improvement on this team for us to make such a harsh claim.
RJ is also likely a goner so their bench probably will be worse next year. IMO, only winning a championship this year or next will keep KD in OKC. After he leaves, they will fall into oblivion.
I dont think it was a successful season for the clippers they had everything going for them this year: Paul and Griffin - two legitimate MVP candidates Jordan - rebounding and block machine while being a threat on offensive for lobs and putbacks. Shooters in Redick, Dudley, Barnes and later on Granger An amazing bench that included Darren Collison, Glen Davis and 6th man of the year Crawford And having one of the few coaches who have an nba ring as a coach. This was the Clippers year to make an impact -- they had everything - the amount of talent they had was insane - they were able to add 3 pieces to their bench after the trade deadline in Davis, Granger and Turkoglu -- (in contrast these 3 guys alone would have made the Rockets bench awesome) to what was an already formidable bench. They went into the playoffs heathly (no injured players) and barely got through an injured Golden State (in my mind having Bogut would have probably caused GS to win) in 7 games -- yeah there was the bad call in game 1 but Paul got away with a call in game 3 which evened things out. They can get better next year but they played their hands - they flexibility is limited now and they still have an amazing team that could easily win 60 games if healthy. But its hard for me to see them get any better at the moment. And sometimes you think you are knocking on the door only to see that its already been shut. I mean no one would have imagined the best playoff series Tracy and Yao would have was going to be the first one they played in together. Nothing in the future can be for sure - you never know if next season if someone is hurt, someone leaves - trades happen etc. The clippers had a great window these last few years and have not gotten past the second round. Actually the Sam Cassell led clippers actually went further (they were 1 game away from the WCF) than these Paul/Griffin led clippers.
The Clippers improvement hinges on this Sterling situation. They have some free agents restricted and unrestricted Collison, Darren Davis, Glen Granger, Danny Hollins, Ryan Turkoglu, Hedo Dudley sucks he is not a great shooter. Anybody that watched him knows giving up Bledsoe for this guy turned out to be a massive let down because the man worked himself out of the rotation in about a month by doing absolutely nothing at all.. so bad he went on twitter to apologize. They had a myriad of injuries this year which you guys keep making blanket statements about records without including all of the facts. Matter of factly you didnt see Turk at all because he had a hairline fracture in his back so im sure you missed him right? Turk, Granger and Davis all came as a result of buyouts and 2 of them after free agency, they were not apart of the original team. Crawford is 35 years old and a jumpshooter All the rest of them are also unathletic stand still jumpshooters, Reddick, Dudley, Barnes who started but is really a bench player, bullock, then you have a worthless player in Hollins who's tall and athletic but is nothing more than 6 immediate fouls. The playoffs are all about matchups. If the Clippers had to go through Portland instead of OKC they'd still be in it wouldnt they? As it remains, the top 4 teams in the league survived, so jumping down any teams throat about that is otherwise being wilfully stubborn.
I don't think Doc is to blame, but he doesn't work miracles, either. Even a great coach couldn't prevent his team from choking in a critical moment (end of game 5, for one) sometimes. Players just have to go out there and perform. This ain't no puppet theatre. The coach doesn't have a hand up a player's ass to control how he plays. People get on McHale for saying that players just have to play harder. But it's true and it's the lesson he learned as a player himself. Bird, McHale, Parish, Ainge, etc. went out there and took care of business. Win or loss, they didn't sit around talking about how Bill Fitch, KC Jones or Chris Ford succeeded or failed to make adjustments or motivate them or hold them accountable. The guys who are on the court just have to do get it done.
If clippy was here I guarantee you he would think it was a failure too. The rockets are the only team content with playoff failures.
I hate articles like that How many teams sans Magic Johnson who had a real team that was stacked gone to the NBA finals? This stuff is laughable how all of a sudden we act like basketball is tennis or some kind of individual sport. There is a reason LeBron bolted Cleveland, because if not this is the same nonsense they'd be saying about him.
They wanted to make the Finals - WCF or Finals. But they always choke in the playoffs after looking unbeatable in the reg. season. So, yes, failure. Plus, Sterling made a total ass of himself and makes the whole team look bad for being associated with him. So, double-plus failure.
But it's not as if the Clippers were expected to get there anyway. The Clippers were the third-seed in a stacked Western Conference and both Vegas and ESPN Forecast called the Oklahoma City Thunder to win this series. So, this is the reason why CP3 couldn't get to the WCF? How about both Vegas & ESPN didn't think CP3 have what it takes to get there and THAT is the reason why they were not favored? Yes, he is very good and he may win a championship in his later years; but as of now, he hasn't achieved playoff greatness. This season is a failure and he is part of it. Just like our season.
