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Lob City is dead: Where to now for the LA Clippers?

DeAndre Jordan while playing for the Clippers. (Flickr/Keith Allison)
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3rd September, 2018
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In a world as narrative-driven as the NBA, it’s funny how quickly everything can fall apart.

In 2015, the Los Angeles Clippers finally looked ready to make good on five years of building. They had finished third in the Western Conference and defeated reigning champions San Antonio in the first round of the playoffs. At last, it looked like the core of Blake Griffin, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan were ready to fulfil their potential.

But it wasn’t to be. Up 3-1 in the second round against the Houston Rockets, the Clippers somehow let it all slip away. They lost three games in a row, lost the series and were knocked out of the playoffs. The Clippers Curse struck again.

Griffin, Jordan and Paul were a genuinely fearsome combination. They made L.A’s second franchise relevant for perhaps the first time in league history. Lob City was an identity. They were exciting, entertaining and amazing.

It felt like something real, something that could be historically great. Maybe even win a championship or two. Clippers fans dared to dream.

Fast forward to the present day, and Lob City is dead. Chris Paul went first, forcing a trade to Houston after one too many playoff disappointments. No one blamed him for leaving. It made sense for one of the greatest point guards in history to go somewhere he might actually win something.

Then, in what was one of the most shocking and saddening days of my sports-watching life, Blake Griffin was traded to Detroit. Unlike Paul’s trade, this one wasn’t pushed by the player himself. Blake was the face of the franchise and seemed legitimately devastated to be shipped off to the Pistons after being labelled a “Clipper for life” by management just months earlier.

Finally, DeAndre Jordan took his bouncy athleticism to the Dallas Mavericks, and Clippers we once knew and loved were officially over.

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Really, it was over the moment Blake was traded. The Clippers were Blake’s team, and after Kobe Bryant retired, Los Angeles was Blake’s city.

Blake Griffin was the proto-unicorn. Before Anthony Davis, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Karl-Anthony Towns and Ben Simmons, Blake was a big man who could do it all. He was built like an Adonis, with supreme athleticism and incredible dunking ability while also possessing skill and passing ability far beyond anyone else his size.

Had it not been for a series of debilitating injuries, Blake would have been a perennial MVP candidate and Hall of Famer.

But now that Lob City is over, the Clippers have lost their identity. The West is stacked, but the Clippers seem just a little too good to tank. So what will they look like this upcoming season?

They have two potential All-Stars – last year’s Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams and the man they got in exchange for Blake Griffin, Tobias Harris. They also have solid role players like Patrick Beverly, Avery Bradley, Danilo Gallinari and Milos Teodosic. They traded Austin Rivers for Marcin Gortat, a great move.

Lou Williams shoots a free-throw

Lou Williams. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

The roster suggests they will play a more defensive game plan, hoping to stifle the opposition rather than outgun them.

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The two wild cards are the two lottery picks they drafted in June 2018. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is a smart point guard with a good passing game and huge defensive potential. He should make an instant impact at the top level. Jerome Robinson was a surprise pick but is a gunner with impressive scoring instincts.

It also can’t be ruled out that the Clippers are a potential destination for a top-five player in the NBA next season. Kawhi Leonard has made no secret of his desire to move to L.A. and has made it clear that the Lakers are not his only suitor. If the Clippers land Kawhi, their trajectory instantly changes.

But if they can’t, the future looks far more uncertain.

Lob City is dead. Is the future of the Clippers a Kawhi Leonard-led superteam? Or will they build around Robinson and Gilgeous-Alexander, building a team through the lottery as the Warriors did a few years ago? It’s impossible to know right now.

But for now, we will always remember the Griffin-Paul-Jordan era for what could have been.

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