LeBron and the Lakers have missed the playoffs but their city rivals the Los Angeles Clippers are thriving with a well-constructed roster, a place in the postseason and a plan to get even better. Mark Deeks explains why they are doing so well.
In a look last month at the building of the Los Angeles Lakers, we looked at the concept of Lakers Exceptionalism.
Put as simply as possible, Lakers Exceptionalism is the belief that a team with the history, reputation and brand power of the Lakers should set themselves higher standards befitting that legacy. It means targeting star players and expecting to have an advantage in the free agency and trade markets because of it. And although they lost their way in the Timofey Mozgov years, the Lakers were thought to have re-ignited Exceptionalism when they signed LeBron James over the summer.
In contrast, the team that shares the Staples Center with the Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers, have adopted a different approach. At no point in their history have the Clippers gone only for exceptional talents; indeed, known for so long under the disgraced Donald Sterling's ownership and the ensuing poverty of ambition, resources and wins, their history often counts against them.
In terms of brand power, despite their recent relative improvements and the change in ownership, the Clippers - who have made the playoffs only 16 times in 48 seasons and with a historical reputation for thriftiness - carry little.
The Clippers have instead been known for a while now for their consolidation and targeting of good players. Even in the latter days of the Blake Griffin/Chris Paul/DeAndre Jordan era of the recent past, the team had some excellent finds around the fringes of the roster.
They did not, and do not, target stars. Instead, they target value in every trade, projectability in every draft pick, asset accumulation at every turn, and useful players wherever they can be found.
Call it Clippers Decency, if you will.
As of this week, the Lakers have been eliminated from the playoffs, while the Clippers have clinched their spot. Clippers Decency has worked. It has worked not only on account of the relative quality of their recent acquisitions, but the quantity of them.
There are three main boxes to tick in order to acquire premium talent in the NBA, and the Clippers used all three in assembling their 'Big Three' of the last decade. You need to be lucky, draft well, and win trades. They got lucky enough to draft Griffin, drafted extremely well in getting Jordan in the second round, and showed timely aggression and asset management in trading for Paul.
Some mistakes were made in the ensuing years that prevented that trio from ever truly competing for a title, but the end of that era has seen the real birth of Clippers Decency.
In dismantling their 'Big Three', the Clippers have received a plethora of quality players and future assets that outstrip what the vast majority of the competition received when trading their own stars.
For Chris Paul, the Clippers received Lou Williams, Patrick Beverley, Montrezl Harrell, Sam Dekker, a first-round pick and some salary filler. Dekker came to nothing and Beverly missed the majority of his first season with his new team due to injury, yet his leadership and tone-setting defense has been very impactful since his return.
Harrell meanwhile has gone on to become one of the most improved players in the league, and Williams re-signed to an incredibly team-friendly contract while still playing some of the best ball of his career.
For Blake Griffin, the Clippers received Tobias Harris, Avery Bradley, Boban Marjanovic, a 2018 first-round pick and a 2019 second-round pick. Continuing the career-long trend of ensuring that every team who trades him goes on to regret doing so, Harris developed his game yet further to become one of the most efficient and versatile near-star complementary scoring talents in the NBA, while the first-round pick was a lottery selection that, a quick trade-up later, became Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. And SGA's defense, headiness, size and defensive versatility have seen him start almost all of his rookie campaign.
Although DeAndre Jordan left in free agency, Harrell has more than offset that loss, playing the defense that Jordan once used to on the interior while also continuing to develop his offensive skill set beyond mere powerful finishes.
At this point, Harrell is a better player than Jordan, and has also signed an incredibly team-friendly contract. For less than the $22,897,200 that Jordan is earning this season, the Clippers have managed to get all of Williams ($8m), Harrell ($6m), Beverley ($5,027,027) and Gilgeous-Alexander ($3,375,360).
Further to that, the first-round pick from the Paul deal was sent to the Atlanta Hawks, along with Jamal Crawford, in a sign-and-trade for Danilo Gallinari.
The first-round pick from the Rockets was so low as to be the last pick in that round (latterly being used on Omari Spellman), and all playing value had been extracted from an aged Crawford by that time, yet somehow that package was able to return Gallinari, who, after a move to the power forward position that will suit him best hereafter, is having a career-best season at age 30.
The pairing of Harris and Marjanovic were moved on at February's trade deadline for a plethora of assets. For those two expiring contracts, plus a third in little-used reserve bench shooter Mike Scott, the Clippers will receive four future draft picks, including two first-rounders, for players they were highly unlikely to keep anyway.
While in terms of immediate players the Clippers received only Landry Shamet, Mike Muscala and Wilson Chandler, the move had an ancillary benefit in how it allowed Gallinari to move to his proper position. And furthermore, Shamet is good, both now and in the future.
Even Avery Bradley was somehow converted into Garrett Temple and JaMychal Green. Bradley was seemingly a firm favourite of head coach Doc Rivers, a starter for his entire season-long Clippers career when not injured, yet he was among the least impactful starters in the NBA, never finding an offensive role and not playing the defense his reputation suggested he would. Somehow, though, the Clippers were able to move him to the Memphis Grizzlies for two decent reserves who seem content with being reserves.
Added to the above have been good low-key free agent signings and smaller trade acquisitions, particularly of younger players. Scott, Luc Richard Mbah A Moute and Tyrone Wallace are or were all useful contributors for low prices, and although Mbah A Moute has been largely absent through a prolonged knee injury, the sheer depth of options the Clippers have acquired and the line-up versatility it gives them offsets his or any absence.
All this has been done with a view to keeping open their 2019 free agency aspirations. Headed into this offseason, the Clippers will have only Gallinari, Williams, Harrell, Gilgeous-Alexander, Shamet, Wallace, Jerome Robinson and Sindarius Thornwell under contract, with only Gallinari ($22,615,559) under contract for more than the mid-level exception. There is room for a maximum value contract in that picture, and then some.
Between the reselling of Bradley and Crawford, the Clippers have turned buyout candidates into valuable players whose contracts fit in with their future plans. All this Decency is designed to help target the stars down the road. Ironically, should the Clippers succeed in acquiring star players via free agency and/or the trade market this summer, it will be precisely because they were not single-track minded about it.
The epitome of Clippers Decency and the extraction of value may have been their third deadline day trade. For the privilege of rehoming Muscala - whom they only ever acquired as salary filler and who has been mired in a career-worst campaign anyway - the Clippers received highly promising young player Ivica Zubac, who was immediately plugged into the line-up in both the roster and starting spots of a declined Marcin Gortat. The victim of that heavily one-sided trade? The overly urgent and imbalanced Lakers.
The Clippers have found an interesting roster balance that somehow involves two of their three leading scorers coming off the bench. They have been afforded that balance by the relative volume of talent found all the way down the roster, itself found by excellent asset management. That asset management has been born not out of luck, but out of timing, foresight, and the ability to extract value where it seemed little to no value could be found.
Since the trade deadline, the Clippers have posted a 15-4 record, including winning 11 of their last 12 games. It seems the sum total of all this Decency is a very good NBA team.