Why The 2020 Los Angeles Clippers Are The BIGGEST DISSAPONTMENTS In NBA History

who do you think's gonna win the west this year um the clippers the clippers not only have the best defensive versatility in the league yes the lakers have a height advantage but the three-point shooting of the clippers with blue will and trez on the floor the clippers are the best team in basketball the clippers are loaded and this is going to be like an advanced organized version of wreck ball start with the fact defensively who's going to who's going to score against the los angeles clippers i would give the slight nod as a defender to kawhi over jordan i'm going to say the clippers that that team defensively is going to be great i know it's hard to embrace kawhi is the best player in the game and he's the most impactful that team is mentally and physically tougher on the defensive side of the ball slippers are hungrier they got more dog they got more nasty patrick beverly that's why the clippers are my choice to make it to the nba finals out of the west i think the clippers are a better team this will be the clippers in pretty short work five games in short work yeah i have a hard time picking against the clippers i think it's the clippers championship to lose issue a shocking upset they eliminate the heavily favored clippers here in the second round and an historic series win against the team that many felt was the favorites to win the championship they failed to reach the conference finals it's never happened in their franchise history they had three opportunities for practically the entirety of franchise history the los angeles clippers have been the laughing stock of the nba and due to an overwhelming amount of injuries bad trades and losing many people would argue that the clippers franchise was cursed but thanks to some decisions and after a couple of all seasons it was clear that los angeles had put themselves in a situation to make some major moves most of which materialized in the summer of 2019 the clippers would acquire kawhi leonard and paul george which made them instant favorites to win the championship heading into the new year and if you weren't convinced the clippers would continue to make additions to their roster and even with them struggling throughout the regular season still found themselves the second best record in the western conference so ending the year with the laws after having a 3-1 lead against the denver nuggets in and of itself is a massive disappointment but it still somehow gets worse when you dig a bit deeper into the details and chronicalize everything that occurred that led up to this moment it all began on july 11 2016 with tim duncan retiring from the nba essentially making a 25 year old kawhi leonard the face of the san antonio spurs now there were some doubts if kawhi would be able to take on that responsibility however all doubts were erased just a few months later because thanks to an mvp caliber season as well as an amazing first two rounds from kauai the san antonio spurs found themselves in the western conference finals matching up against the golden state warriors and surprisingly enough in game one the spurs were up huge against the overwhelming favorites but all of that momentum and success was ended immediately thanks to zaza pachulia sliding his feet under kawhi leonard after a shot attempt which kept him sidelined for the remainder of the series now the timetable for which kawhi was supposed to return to action was extremely unclear because kawhi was out rehabbing for the remainder of the offseason throughout the preseason and even in the early stages of the regular season kawhi attempted to come back and play a handful of games but never felt 100 and decided to continue to rehab because of that decision rumor started to surface about internal questions of kawhi's commitment to the organization because of said rumors a disagreement materialized between kauai in the front office and the result of said disagreement was kauai demanding a trade yeah that escalated pretty quickly allegedly the original request from kauai was to be traded to the lakers however the spurs weren't going to trade a superstar caliber player to one of their rivals so instead the spurs decided to trade kauai to a toronto team that was at a crossroad see at the time toronto just concluded their year in very disappointing fashion losing to lebron yet again and the front office was pondering the decision to just hit the restart button but instead in a very desperate attempt they decided to give it one more swing in the championship run trade arguably the greatest raptor in franchise history demar derozan to the san antonio spurs to receive danny green and kawhi leonard who both were on expiring contracts which was a massive risk but it paid off with the improvement of young players and consistent productivity from veterans kawhi and the raptors had a championship caliber team on their hands and thanks to an amazing postseason run highlighted with one of the greatest shots in nba history unconventional but very effective defensive schemes some injury luck and an oddly impressive stretch from fred van vliet the toronto raptors pulled off the impossible and won a championship with kawhi leonard winning finals mvp now one would rightfully assume that kawhi should just sign back with the raptors they have arguably the league's best front office a great coach an amazing supporting cast and the raptors on the eastern conference where the path to the championship is a bit easier than the west but uh no in the summer of 2019 as a free agent kwai decided to take his talents to la but instead of playing for the lakers he decided to play for a clipper team that was coming off of an impressive scrappy postseason run but before he could fully commit he knew he needed a co-star to join alongside him now before we get to ahead of ourselves let's talk about how paul george got here in june of 2017 paul george demanded to be traded from the indiana pacers and one could easily see the legitimacy in his demands see at the time the pacers were no longer seeing the type of success that they had achieved early in a decade certain changes to the roster were definitely questionable and according to paul george he was successful in recruiting quote unquote the best power forward in the game but indiana declined that acquisition because they weren't willing to make that type of financial commitment the best power forward saying he wanted to come to india and team up with me they like we don't we are we a major we're a small market like we we don't we we can't do it we're a small market we can't afford that i'm like the best power four wants to come play here like y'all can't make that work and similar to kawhi paul george originally wanted to be traded to the los angeles lakers but the indiana pacers declined his request and traded him to the oklahoma city thunder who at the time were desperate to revamp their roster as the front office made steep promises to westbrook to convince him to stay long term to make sure they kept their end of the bargain the thunder decided to trade a few pieces to go get future hall of famer carmelo anthony and also trade victor oladipo and damonte sabonis to the indiana pacers to receive paul george paul george was ecstatic that he was given the opportunity to play alongside talent to pieces and one could argue the amount of talent on the thunder had the potential to be labeled a big three but that label never really stuck the thunder struggled all throughout the regular season and finished a year off with 48 games in their win column only one more than the prior year when westbrook was essentially by himself however the mediocre regular season didn't shake paul george's confidence and actually paul george is so confident in his thunder team that he truly believed that once the playoffs got going that they would flip the switch turn on the intensity and make a deep postseason run and went even further to question the validity of anyone to even highlight the struggles because of course you clearly have not met his alter ego play off p you ain't met play lp yet i'm used to i'm used to these matchups i'm used to playing against the best offensive god paul george i have to take the time out and thank you myself because that quote alone is one of the greatest quotes in nba history because after that infamous interview the thunder would be knocked out in the first round by a rebuilding utah jazz team led by rookie and donovan mitchell and oh yeah playoff p struggled all throughout the first round now because of the disappointing ending to the season this gave paul george the perfect opportunity to depart from the oklahoma city thunder and sign with the team that he originally wanted to be traded to in the los angeles lakers since he was a free agent in the summer of 2018 and to make the lakers an even more desirable destination rumors started to surface that lebron was going to take his talents to la and play for the lakers which eventually became true so what does paul george do he signs an extension stays in okc and instead of playing with lebron he decides to run it back with russell westbrook yikes that's going to be a yikes for me holy at the time anyone who's not a die-hard okc fan could easily identify the massive mistake that paul george just made and it became blatantly obvious after the upcoming season because more or less the 2018-2019 season was just a rerun of the prior year the thunder struggled yet again won fewer than 50 games to be a bit more specific one more win in the prior season into the playoffs got knocked out in the first round and embarrassing fashion and paul george yet again underperformed in the postseason the only difference this time is that pg gave us an infamous quote after the series instead of before it yeah yeah i mean that's a bad shot i care what anybody says that's a bad shot but hey he made it that story won't be told that it was a bad shot so here we are now in the summer 2019 and news breaks that paul george is going to be traded to the los angeles clippers now it isn't clear on how exactly we got here because some stories claim that paul george allegedly forced his way out of okc after kawhi recruited him to the clippers but here we are and everyone is happy paul george is finally on a championship caliber roster lou williams is ecstatic patrick beverly is running around telling other nba players how they're in trouble for the season it comes out that we got kawhi also and uh you know i'm stoked i see pj tucker nice to get the laughing in his face go to his door knock on this door hey lebron what's up bro hey pat yeah it's pretty much over for you guys [Laughter] steve ballmer is doing steve ballmer things and even kawhi took advantage of the opportunity to announce his new deal with new balance and in the commercial make claims that we have now so how did the regular season go the clippers were solid early on but nothing really special and it really wasn't any proof that they were going to be this quote unquote dominant force in the league that was heavily favored to win the championship but hey it's okay the team did deal with some injuries and of course had some chemistry problems but just in case there are some concerns the clippers made more additions during the regular season and brought in marcus morris reggie jackson and eventually signed joe kim noah and to the credit of the clippers they did start to turn it around and eventually secure the second seed in the western conference and what really benefited them even further is when the season was suspended because this gave them the perfect opportunity for a lot of their players to rest up and get healthy yeah i'm only getting healthier over here then you heard uh your hamstring yeah see that's what that's what's healthy now my hammy my hammy back to norm now fast forward a few months later and now we're at the bubble and the playoffs are beginning and the clippers in the first round match up with an inexperienced dallas mavericks team and who would have guessed it the los angeles clippers are struggling and if we want to be honest with ourselves if porzingis wasn't ejected in game one and stayed healthy and available then there's a realistic chance that the dallas mavericks would have at least pushed this series to a game seven and had a real likelihood of pulling off the upset but hey the clippers caught a massive break advancing to the second round beaming the dallas mavericks in six games and to make it even better in the second round the clippers would eventually face off against the denver nuggets team that was young and had some experience but nothing overwhelming and if you had any doubts they were all erased by the end of game four as the clippers took a 3-1 lead in the momentum of having a 3-1 lead carried over into game 5 as the clippers were up huge and it also put an irrational amount of confidence in some of the clippers players more specifically marcus morris who got into an altercation with paul millsap but that might have been the wrong thing to do because even though the clippers had a 16 point lead before halftime that altercation apparently woke up paul millsap and in the third quarter he went off scoring 14 of his 17 points helping the nuggets gain momentum coming back from the deficit and eventually winning game five but we got two more games early in the third quarter in game six the clippers again had a massive lead but thanks to god awful shooting from both kawhi leonard and paul george as well as an amazing stretch of basketball from nikolajokic the clippers yet again blew a major lead in the second half of a playoff game and the different nuggets ended up winning game six so here we are in game seven and yet again the clippers have a lead entering the second half and just like that the clippers not only blow the lead but also blow the series despite being up 3-1 against the diver nuggets and in game seven paul george and kawhi leonard struggled throughout the entire outing but to be a bit more specific paul george in the second half of the last three games of this series was just god awful and just like in the prior two years paul george gave us the perfect quote at the end of another disappointing season for his career but you know it is what it is um it's it's it's no cop out um fact of the matter is we didn't live up to that expectation but i think internally we we've always felt um this is not a championship or bus year for us and that right there is the reason why this video needed to be made because the story should never change about what was expected from this clippers team because it was very clear from day one and if you don't believe me just a few months prior when kevin hart asks paul george the exact same question for whatever reason we got a completely different answer from pg is it a get it done or bust or is it patience within said two years or three year time i think immediately we expected to come in and and win it all like we we didn't have no other um like hey this is gonna take a year to get used to one another see the reality is the expectations were always a championship for this organization and if that wasn't the expectations internally why is it that patrick beverly is going around mocking other nba players for getting knocked out the playoffs if at least reaching the finals wasn't one of the expectations why would lou williams take a pay cut if not having the ability to keep up with the los angeles lakers weren't one of the expectations why would the front office move all of those pieces just to get you out of okc and paul george if you truly believe performing the way you did throughout the playoffs while blowing a 3-1 lead in the second round is anywhere near expectations for this team in the first year why would kawhi leonard leave a team that he just won a championship with to join forces with you so the truth is this team was assembled with the intentions of winning a championship so getting knocked out in the second round after blowing a 3-1 lead is a massive disappointment for this team and taking everything into consideration of what led up to this point the 2020 los angeles clippers will easily go down as one of the biggest disappointments in nba history but hey hopefully next year you keep that same energy that you have with dennis schroeder when you are on the phone with him on instagram live because you definitely looked way more prepared on that phone than you did on the court we got joe keem too we were stacked that's why we ready like we waiting we like oh i hope this should come back i hope this year i'm only getting healthier over here

Channel: Legend Of Winning

Views: 875,819

Rating: 4.9122176 out of 5

Keywords: NBA, nba playoffs, nba season, nba restart, 2020, Los Angeles Clippers, Clippers, Paul George, kawhi leonard, patrick beverley, Doc Rivers, Overrated, Fail, 3-1 lead, 3-1 lead blown in nba, LeBron, Flight Mike

Id: NJ1m1x4kp64

Length: 17min 6sec (1026 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mkmore4]

2013 Lakers have to be in this conversation. they were the second favorite before the season (Miami being the favorite), and it took a heroic Kobe effort for them to even make the playoffs where they got waxed in round 1.

At least the Clippers won 7 playoff games.

[u/lm2lm]

At least we're the most something

[u/Tkinzel517]

2011 Heat but ok

[u/goinghardinthepaint]

2011 Heat, 2004 Lakers...

Maybe 1998-99 Rockets

[u/PristineDecision]

LOW?

[u/braungetthesehands]

1968 sixers

[u/threesecondsellout]

I'm irrationally mad at his graphic that has "FT% - 4/4" etc.