LA Clippers Need Their Veterans, but Which Ones?
The Los Angeles Clippers are old, but they're also not.
They have this odd dichotomy: a roster containing a core of guys in their primes and a bench of almost-retirees.
Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, DeAndre Jordan and J.J. Redick are all spry as can be, in the midst of the best parts of their careers. Meanwhile, guys like Matt Barnes, Hedo Turkoglu, Jamal Crawford and Glen Davis have their most useful days behind them.
That's the sort of roster Doc Rivers has compiled, as it's become no secret that he prefers veterans.
Reggie Bullock barely saw the floor during his time with the Clippers. Same goes for C.J. Wilcox and Jordan Hamilton this past season. Obviously, you can make clear and definitive arguments that none of those players is deserving of extended minutes. But the point is, we don't know from game experience.
And at some point, Rivers had to like those talents; he is, after all, the exec who drafted Bullock and Wilcox and the one who signed Hamilton.
Last offseason, the Clips didn't make much of a concerted effort to get younger, not that they needed to. Once again, the core is in its prime. But as the already ineffective fringes antiquate even more, the Clippers have to find some way to reinforce the rust accumulating on the bench.
Could Rivers end up doing that with even more relics than he already has?
The argument that the Clippers need more veteran leadership is certainly palpable. The funky part of their collapse after leading the Houston Rockets 3-1 in the Western Conference Semifinals wasn't necessarily the deterioration of their play—though that obviously showed a startling change in quality. But their attitudes after the crash were like few collective postgame reactions.
The Clips were brutally honest about their faults.
You'll see teams let go of big leads in the most important of contexts, but how often do you hear multiple players or coaches come out after and openly admit the guys got tight? It's rare. But it happened in L.A.
"I love my team. I love the fact that they wanted to win so bad that I thought, in my opinion, we almost couldn’t win. We have to fix that part of it. It still requires great trust in the system and in each other. Our guys wanted to win so badly, they were trying to do it all on their own – each guy. In one way you want that, and in another, that can’t win for you. I thought that did us in.” - Doc Rivers, NBA.com
"We wanted it so bad that we didn't make the plays we normally do." - Blake Griffin, Los Angeles Times
"Game 6 we stopped playing, took our foot off the pedal. We got tight. You could say self-inflicted, whatever you want to call it. It’s on us. We put ourselves in this situation and made it tough for ourselves. You can’t do that.” - Blake Griffin, NBA.com
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I've never actually played for an NBA team (you're floored, I know). So, I can't say exactly how much a team needs veteran presence after a playoff loss—nay, playoff catastrophe—like that. But I can say the Clippers thought they had the veteran presences already there this season.
That's why Rivers went out of his way clearing cap to bring back Turkoglu this season. And when the team wasn't truly getting along midseason, it's why he brought Dahntay Jones into the mix.
"I came to a team that was—the morale was down a little bit when I got here, guys weren't really cheering for each other," said Jones when he first signed with the team back in January. "So, I just started being myself. Be the first one in the gym, cheer for my teammates, work hard."
That was Jones' role. He wasn't just on the Clippers for the random one possession he'd come in to defend at the end of halves every once in a while. It was more about his influence in the locker room.
"There were guys who weren't happy with their minutes, and they weren't necessarily bad, but they weren't enthusiastic about their roles," said Jones. "And sometimes, you have to give something before you can get it, give it any way you can."
Jones truly did believe he turned around locker room rapport. And it seemed to show. The bench celebrations grew a little more rabid as the season continued. So did the team's on-court harmony—or, at least, it seemed that way.
Since the incentive to re-sign the free agent-to-be Jordan and keep the core together is obvious, maybe the Clippers need different veterans on the outside of the top four. No, neither the roster nor the salary cap flexibility is there, but we're talking about the minimum deals, the ones at the end of the bench.
Maybe that can make a difference for Redick, who shot 5-of-26 from long range over the final three games of the Rockets series. Or for Barnes, who sank only 5-of-22 field-goal attempts during that stretch.
The Clippers didn't just lose because they got "tight." There were other clear contributing factors, mainly exhaustion. Two consecutive seven-game series against teams like the San Antonio Spurs and Rockets will do that to you, especially when you have only 6.5 competent rotation players in the postseason lineup.
Because of that, talent is the discernible factor in any offseason personnel moves. That might be where a rumored Paul Pierce signing—most recently reported by Robert Morales of InsideSoCal.com (h/t Pro Basketball Talk)—could help most, since he could step in as a locker room presence and an on-floor contributor.
But the Clippers have to find some way not to clench down the stretch. After the loss, they said it was because they wanted it too much. Whatever the reason, if they can find clubhouse personalities to exterminate whatever bacteria caused those impure symptoms that surfaced in Games 5, 6 and 7 against the Rockets, they'll be in much better shape for next season.
Follow Fred Katz on Twitter at @FredKatz.
All quotes obtained firsthand unless noted otherwise. Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of June 11 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.
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