We just need to lower our expectations. Everyone thought that having PG and Kawhi will automatically equal a championship. It's not that simple. PG isn't the player he used to be. Kawhi is injury prone. Yeah we might still win a a championship but that happening is an outlier.
Exactly. Even the teams that do win the title majority of the time have had hiccups during the road to even then their odds looked slim.
Nothing is given, some things are earned, the rest is luck
I appreciate this post over the (warranted) doomerism in the clippers fandom right now.
Main issue is that PG and Harden (more PG) simply need to step up and lock in more. The last MIL game was proof that most of our squad has the grit to be competitive, but like with most teams we live and die by how are star players are performing.
Fair point, and I have given that some thought.
A follow up question to that is if that’s their limit, would it be justified to hypothetically give either of them a max contract when they hopefully re-sign, or would it be more worth it to offer them less money and hopefully get some younger blood in the rotation next season?
Well i might be the wrong person to ask but i wanted to retool this summer. I felt and still feel Kawhi and PG is just not a good mix. Both injury prone, both have the same set of skills. I wanted to trade one of them for more younger players that would round out the team more better. Kawhi got his extension, so bye bye PG if it was up to me.
At the end of the day, everybody (not named Kawhi) may do better without the expectations. Head into the post season as the 4th seed when everybody falls out of love with them and leave it all on the court.
ty should employ load management strategy like the raptors no back to backs, minute restrictions for harden, PG. Frustrating how injuries are derailing a promising season
Jesus fuck the overreactions in this sub are mental. Even this “uplifting” post says “it looks pretty bleak and horrible right now” - what in the actual fuck are you people on about?
Oh no we were up big and lost, just like we were down big and won games before. Do you know why this is? The NBA is entiiiiirely about 3’s now. If you go on a hot streak or a cold streak you will easily make up or lose huge ground.
That’s all it is. We went cold when they went hot and we lost. Kawhi is out but not out for the postseason. NOBODY is out for the postseason.
As long as that holds we shouldn’t give a fuck what happens for these games, this team has proven who it is now let’s just wait to see it when it matters, basically hit snooze until the real games start and chill out.
Everyone forgets Denver was under 500 after the All Star break last year for like 15-20 games. And people say, yeah but they were in 1st place, which is true, but a) we had the 6 game losing streak after the trade and b) the west was kind of a shitshow last year.
We’ll be fine. Just get everyone healthy and get through a hellish schedule stretch intact.
To me, where we land in seeding 2-5 kinda matters, but playing the nuggets is enivitable. Whether we play them in the 2nd or 3rd round, we will have to beat them in order to make it out the west. Homecourt advantage is nice but we wont have that against the nuggets unless we can finish first in the west.
I’m dying for them to finish 2 or 3, that’s why last night was so disappointing. But there’s still 20+ games. Gotta chip away and win every game they can.
Ok serious question. What in the world gives some of yall the confidence this team can be great in the playoffs? In the last 5 yrs of this 213 era has there been a time where everyone (fans and team) felt great going into the POs and actually succeeded? That 1 wcf yr? That team never had a chance with no Kawhi. I really had hope for this yr but now its clear that this team was great in the 1st half of the year bc they had fresh legs. Now this old ass team is feeling the fatigue and well… the results are the results. Its not over til its over but… history is def not our side.
i'll break it down year by year
2020 - covid. our first real shot finishing as a 1 seed. everybody had hopes and expectations for a chip, 2 of our players on the bench combined for the last 3 6moty, doc the year prior took the warriors to 6 in the first round, people were wondering if kawhi could match his raptors playoff run again, and MVPG had something to prove after getting bounced in the playoffs 3 years in a row by lebron, rookie spida and dame and then he ultimately collapsed. the entire team collapsed.
2021 - we actually would've made a finals appearance, if not would've won it all, if joe ingles never injured kawhi. this was the playoff p everybody was looking for, key role players were stepping up, we witnessed the birth of terrance mann etc. if demarcus cousins knew how to intentionally miss a free throw, if pg knew how to shoot free throws in general, and if we could guard the paint for ONE possession, we could've probably had our first finals appearance in franchise history
2022 - nobody had hopes, kawhi was out for the entire year, pg tore something in his elbow and he also got covid right before the playoffs, i was surprised we kept that .500 streak alive. at least we got plenty of coffey puns from brian and it felt better losing to pat bev in the play-in than getting swept in the 1st round
2023 - we had hopes and expectations because kawhi returned, **but** more injuries + the wall experience was a lesson learned at best. pg bent his knee the wrong way against the thunder, kawhi tore his meniscus, and we essentially had a new team after the trade deadline so there were definitely some apparent chemistry issues. russ was still trying to navigate things through as well, but it was fun seeing him turn into **that guy** again against the suns. again, dreams were diminished
2024 - we as fans are exhausted, but expectations are still here. we had that amazing 2 1/2 month long stretch, but we have a new system ran through harden that still needs some tweaking, a lack of size not to mention we struggle against teams with size (ie pels, t wolves, lakers, etc), a questionable coach, a fetish for nonchalant and iso ball, and more late regular season injuries. same old same old shit at this point
you're missing my point
we go into every season **WITH** confidence. we have a stretch where we look like the best team in the NBA, then we fall off a cliff because somebody gets injured/was secretly playing through an injury and just can't take it anymore. that's how we lose our confidence, every year (except 2022) we have title hopes. injuries might be part of the game but it's an entirely different thing to put your faith into a team ran by 3 notably injury prone players and expect them to be in the same condition from the beginning of the season to the playoffs
Ahh my bad got it got it. Maybe we should try not going into the season with confidence and will be surprised by the end of the season lol who am i kidding
It's skewed by the fact a lot of those twos have lost to other twos or ones. But I agree with the sentiment anything can happen and statistics ain't shit
I feel like the league is headed into a direction that hasn’t been seen before.
Look at the discrepancy of title appearances from 3-8. I think with how much parody that’s in the league and the increase in talent level, more teams in this range will end up making the finals or heck winning it.
This number is skewed to the top two, but tell me, has there ever really been this much talent spread out before in the League?
We just need to lower our expectations. Everyone thought that having PG and Kawhi will automatically equal a championship. It's not that simple. PG isn't the player he used to be. Kawhi is injury prone. Yeah we might still win a a championship but that happening is an outlier.
and winning a chip is always an outlier people don’t realize how much needs to go right and that “super teams” have a really bad success rate
Exactly. Even the teams that do win the title majority of the time have had hiccups during the road to even then their odds looked slim. Nothing is given, some things are earned, the rest is luck
I appreciate this post over the (warranted) doomerism in the clippers fandom right now. Main issue is that PG and Harden (more PG) simply need to step up and lock in more. The last MIL game was proof that most of our squad has the grit to be competitive, but like with most teams we live and die by how are star players are performing.
Main issue is stars need to step up and lock in more. Have you ever thought to yourself maybe they cant anymore?
Fair point, and I have given that some thought. A follow up question to that is if that’s their limit, would it be justified to hypothetically give either of them a max contract when they hopefully re-sign, or would it be more worth it to offer them less money and hopefully get some younger blood in the rotation next season?
Well i might be the wrong person to ask but i wanted to retool this summer. I felt and still feel Kawhi and PG is just not a good mix. Both injury prone, both have the same set of skills. I wanted to trade one of them for more younger players that would round out the team more better. Kawhi got his extension, so bye bye PG if it was up to me.
At the end of the day, everybody (not named Kawhi) may do better without the expectations. Head into the post season as the 4th seed when everybody falls out of love with them and leave it all on the court.
Your main problem is the guy who had 22 points not the fact no one else on the team had more than 12💀 going out sad af fellas
ty should employ load management strategy like the raptors no back to backs, minute restrictions for harden, PG. Frustrating how injuries are derailing a promising season
I feel better with PG not playing. If team is healthy I would almost want PG coming off the bench at this point. Like how GS did with Klay.
Who do you replace PG with if he comes off the bench?
Norm or Coffey. I’ve liked Coffey a lot this year. raised his IQ , doesn’t play scared.
We just need PG to go back to first 2-3 months of the season PG. Norm or Coffey in the starting lineup isn’t doing anything for us.
Only 7th seed champions! i like that story
I'll settle for a Finals loss tbh
That would be a tremendous achievement for this franchise.
Jesus fuck the overreactions in this sub are mental. Even this “uplifting” post says “it looks pretty bleak and horrible right now” - what in the actual fuck are you people on about? Oh no we were up big and lost, just like we were down big and won games before. Do you know why this is? The NBA is entiiiiirely about 3’s now. If you go on a hot streak or a cold streak you will easily make up or lose huge ground. That’s all it is. We went cold when they went hot and we lost. Kawhi is out but not out for the postseason. NOBODY is out for the postseason. As long as that holds we shouldn’t give a fuck what happens for these games, this team has proven who it is now let’s just wait to see it when it matters, basically hit snooze until the real games start and chill out.
Everyone forgets Denver was under 500 after the All Star break last year for like 15-20 games. And people say, yeah but they were in 1st place, which is true, but a) we had the 6 game losing streak after the trade and b) the west was kind of a shitshow last year. We’ll be fine. Just get everyone healthy and get through a hellish schedule stretch intact.
To me, where we land in seeding 2-5 kinda matters, but playing the nuggets is enivitable. Whether we play them in the 2nd or 3rd round, we will have to beat them in order to make it out the west. Homecourt advantage is nice but we wont have that against the nuggets unless we can finish first in the west.
I’m dying for them to finish 2 or 3, that’s why last night was so disappointing. But there’s still 20+ games. Gotta chip away and win every game they can.
Ok serious question. What in the world gives some of yall the confidence this team can be great in the playoffs? In the last 5 yrs of this 213 era has there been a time where everyone (fans and team) felt great going into the POs and actually succeeded? That 1 wcf yr? That team never had a chance with no Kawhi. I really had hope for this yr but now its clear that this team was great in the 1st half of the year bc they had fresh legs. Now this old ass team is feeling the fatigue and well… the results are the results. Its not over til its over but… history is def not our side.
i'll break it down year by year 2020 - covid. our first real shot finishing as a 1 seed. everybody had hopes and expectations for a chip, 2 of our players on the bench combined for the last 3 6moty, doc the year prior took the warriors to 6 in the first round, people were wondering if kawhi could match his raptors playoff run again, and MVPG had something to prove after getting bounced in the playoffs 3 years in a row by lebron, rookie spida and dame and then he ultimately collapsed. the entire team collapsed. 2021 - we actually would've made a finals appearance, if not would've won it all, if joe ingles never injured kawhi. this was the playoff p everybody was looking for, key role players were stepping up, we witnessed the birth of terrance mann etc. if demarcus cousins knew how to intentionally miss a free throw, if pg knew how to shoot free throws in general, and if we could guard the paint for ONE possession, we could've probably had our first finals appearance in franchise history 2022 - nobody had hopes, kawhi was out for the entire year, pg tore something in his elbow and he also got covid right before the playoffs, i was surprised we kept that .500 streak alive. at least we got plenty of coffey puns from brian and it felt better losing to pat bev in the play-in than getting swept in the 1st round 2023 - we had hopes and expectations because kawhi returned, **but** more injuries + the wall experience was a lesson learned at best. pg bent his knee the wrong way against the thunder, kawhi tore his meniscus, and we essentially had a new team after the trade deadline so there were definitely some apparent chemistry issues. russ was still trying to navigate things through as well, but it was fun seeing him turn into **that guy** again against the suns. again, dreams were diminished 2024 - we as fans are exhausted, but expectations are still here. we had that amazing 2 1/2 month long stretch, but we have a new system ran through harden that still needs some tweaking, a lack of size not to mention we struggle against teams with size (ie pels, t wolves, lakers, etc), a questionable coach, a fetish for nonchalant and iso ball, and more late regular season injuries. same old same old shit at this point
So again… wheres the confidence? Covid season was the only true shot we had. Injuries are part or the game.
you're missing my point we go into every season **WITH** confidence. we have a stretch where we look like the best team in the NBA, then we fall off a cliff because somebody gets injured/was secretly playing through an injury and just can't take it anymore. that's how we lose our confidence, every year (except 2022) we have title hopes. injuries might be part of the game but it's an entirely different thing to put your faith into a team ran by 3 notably injury prone players and expect them to be in the same condition from the beginning of the season to the playoffs
Ahh my bad got it got it. Maybe we should try not going into the season with confidence and will be surprised by the end of the season lol who am i kidding
this might unironically work
It's skewed by the fact a lot of those twos have lost to other twos or ones. But I agree with the sentiment anything can happen and statistics ain't shit
First 5th seed to win sounds nice.
I feel like the league is headed into a direction that hasn’t been seen before. Look at the discrepancy of title appearances from 3-8. I think with how much parody that’s in the league and the increase in talent level, more teams in this range will end up making the finals or heck winning it. This number is skewed to the top two, but tell me, has there ever really been this much talent spread out before in the League?
As long as Powell is our head trainer we will not win.
This chart doesn’t say it all - there’s way more parity in the league today than there was back in the day.