This season aside, they won more games than us in every regular season (tied once) in the Chris Paul era. In the playoffs, they got past first round three times, compared to our one time. While we did get to the WCF where they never did, I'd say they were slightly more successful than us in the playoffs and much more in the regular seasons in the Chris Paul era.
"Successful" is a term that has changed a lot. We are in an odd era of sports where regular seasons mean nothing and there is no satisfaction for being a damn good team that makes a playoff run but doesn't win it all. We should just change all sports leagues to where after free agency we do a polling system to pick the playoffs and have them start right away, no need for regular season.
They need a better coach, GM, and President of Basketball Operations. In other words, get rid of Doc Rivers. The more coaches that think they can make the right personnel/roster decisions, the better off the Rockets will be. He has probably run out of players to add to the team that he coached or lost to in a playoff series anyway. He won't be able to add any of the Rockets after they beat them in the first round this year. None of those guys will be free agents.
Doc Rivers has been actively bad or at least nothing special as a coach everywhere he has ever been except for a few year stretch in Boston where two hall of famers fell into his lap after he did absolutely nothing with a team with ONE hall of famer and was on the verge of being fired. He has quit on two organizations on top of that. I don't get the appeal of Doc Rivers, I honestly don't get it. He's apparently a likeable guy and he's a former player so that helps him clearly, but we also can't forget that he got the Clippers job in part because Chris Paul campaigned for a black coach. He has gotten more run out of one title team that he had nothing to do with putting together then any coach in the NBA.
I've been saying this for a long time. The NBA regular season is too long. Playing a 82-game season that eliminates less than half of the teams is ridiculous. You either shorten the regular season (like NFL) or you make it mean more and eliminate more teams (like MLB). But I know it won't happen because of business. Anyway, as I showed, even if we only count the playoffs, the Clippers are still arguably more successful than us during the Chris Paul era. I hate Chris Paul, and the Clippers have passed the Lakers as my upmost hated team. But I'd have to say that Paul is a great player. The Clippers were a joke for decades before they got Paul.
The Clippers have been more successful for sure. It's not really debatable. Tons of luck goes into playoff success, including health issues. Paul is a great, great player.
Doc isn't the problem for the Clippers IMO. I think it's CP3. As much as non-Clippers fans don't like him, teammates might feel the same way. The dark cloud that hangs over that team from time to time is from CP3 IMO. Great players sometimes hold back other guys by creating too much pressure in the locker room and on the court. Playing the game stops being fun. I truly believe if the dominant personality on the team wasn't CP3, the Clippers probably would have made the Finals at least once. I've never followed the Clippers closely. Just basing this on watching them over the years.
The clippers are a joke that constantly get hyped because of being in LA. Every year we hear more about the damn clippers before the season than even the Spurs. And then always we hear about how the clippers couldn't "close out" the rockets. Hell no we adjusted and they had no answer. Doc rivers is a total moron. When he was on tv the other day and talked about why harden was so good you could tell he pulled everything from that past weeks harden articles. Casual fans always are talking about how good the clippers are going to be and die hards always chuckle. I remember when their bench of smoove, progioni, and lance Stevenson was getting hyped as like the greatest bench of all time. When everyone mocked us just a season before for picking up smoove. Deandre almost got out of there but got cold feet. Chris Paul is a d bag.
If you can't even get to the Conference Finals, you were never "elite" to begin with. They're all overrated...and I will start with Doc. Doc, as mentioned, on the verge of getting fired, was gifted 2 HOFs in Ray and KG and only got the job done once; and that was in their 1st year as a group. He quit on the Celtics to go to LAC, with the hopes of turning a team that was assembled w/o him to the promised land in the tougher conference. Paul, never got to WCF; their team as a whole, not a mentally tough team. That was magnified x100 when they choked against the Rockets 2 seasons ago. It was mentioned that Paul and Co. are 3-5 in playoff series while he's been there, and all 3 series they won went to Game 7. As Rockets fans, we definitely know that injuries happen that can derail a franchise's window to win a ring; but let's be real, even had they defeated POR last season in Round 1, they wouldn't have stood a chance against GS in the 2nd round. I'm confident in saying that because ever since LAC beat GS in 2014 (which Game 7 went to OT), LAC haven't won a single game vs GS after.
Disagree. Young Rivers got his contract before the salary cap hike. His play didnt even warrant playing time at the time. There were no real suitors or competitors for his services, his Dad just went and offered the money anyway. Nobody was trying to poach him.
Reunion for Magic and Doc Rivers is subject of latest coaching chatter Doc Rivers is under contract to serve as Clippers coach and president of basketball operations through the 2018-19 season. This is Year 3 of the five-year deal Rivers landed with new Clippers owner Steve Ballmer -- believed to be in excess of $50 million -- after steering the club so admirably through the last days of Donald T. Sterling's famously chaotic and controversial reign that spanned more than three decades. That monster pact, however, hasn't prevented Rivers' name from popping up in one of the league's more rampant recent conspiracy theories. There has been persistent chatter for weeks over the NBA's front-office grapevine that the Orlando Magic and Rivers will explore a reunion down the road. Now, you're certainly not alone if you're wondering whether down the road in this case should be measured in months or years. More clarity, though, might not be far off. The Clippers, for starters, are bound to put their entire operation under the microscope if their season continues to unravel in its current manner. Injuries have undoubtedly played their part, with Paul and Griffin playing together in only 37 of L.A.'s 69 games to date, but a 5-8 funk heading into Saturday night's home showdown with the Cleveland Cavaliers has threatened to knock the Clips down to the West's sixth or seventh seed. Not what anyone expected, least of all Ballmer, when these same Clips jumped out to a 14-2 start. Talk of an eventual Rivers return to the Magic Kingdom, where he launched his coaching career, is nonetheless too prevalent among league insiders to ignore. File it away, if nothing else, as we await a number of related dramas to play out. Such as: Is the prospect of a new voice via coaching change, on top of Ballmer's vows to spend as much as it takes to keep his top two stars, something L.A. should consider as part of its pitch to re-sign Paul and Griffin in the event this upcoming postseason plays out like the previous five? Does it even make sense for the Clippers to try to keep that starry twosome together if this latest slide proves irreversible and they stretch it to six consecutive seasons in the Paul-and-Griffin era without progressing beyond the second round of the playoffs? Is the simpler solution for the Clippers asking Rivers to merely surrender one of his titles -- meaning his GM hat -- to bring in a new team-builder that keeps one of the six active championship coaches in the game on his current bench? Do the rumblings about Ballmer's close ties to former Seattle SuperSonics and Portland Trail Blazers executive Bob Whitsitt, as some league insiders believe, make Whitsitt destined to land in charge of the Clips in coming years? Do this week’s complaints about the Clippers' approach and inconsistency coming from J.J. Redick hint at his free-agent departure this summer? Word is that some within the organization are concerned Redick is going to be too pricey to re-sign when the sharpshooter, like L.A.'s starting point guard and power forward, hits the open market in July.
I've been surprised that Doc turned his son into a productive bench player, when Austin first came in the league was total inefficient trash. Now he was his TS up to 55%, shooting a solid 44/39 on 12 points. His advanced defensive numbers are god awful but his offense has become serviceable to keep him in the league a while longer.
You just don't like Cliff Paul. Chris Paul is an excellent basketball player, albeit not as sturdy as his derriere would indicate.
The Clippers are the new Grizzlies. Just good enough to give you problems but never a real threat. They should've dumped Rivers (who is still riding that Allen/Garnett/Pierce trifecta) and gotten Dantoni. CP3/Deandre/Griffin/Crawford/Gordon/Anderson would be a solid core.
I too think Doc is overrated but in all honesty when: 1. Your 3rd player in your "Big 3" is a center that has no offensive skills outside of putbacks/alleys, can't make enough free throws to stay in the game at crunch time, and is no longer an elite defender at the rim. 2. Your 2nd best player seems to always miss X amount of games due to being cursed with injuries or just stupid enough to injure himself assaulting a Clipper worker 3. Your best player seems to always miss x amount of games due to excessive flopping You don't have the right mix. They have talented players, sure, but you can't expect to consistently be an elite team when your core is consistently missing games.
