Jamal Crawford: No title may cause Clippers to blow up core
By Tom West
In a recent interview, Jamal Crawford said the Los Angeles Clippers will need to consider blowing up their core if they aren’t able to win it all again this season.
It’s no secret that the Los Angeles Clippers are one of the teams under the most pressure to produce in the playoffs now. Besides their annual forecast of a second round exit, their All-NBA level core of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan can only be together so long before the Clippers come to the realization that perhaps they aren’t enough to win a championship.
At least while a historically dominant team like the Golden State Warriors are in the league, that will be the case.
Jamal Crawford has acknowledged this in a recent interview for ESPN. When asked if the Clippers don’t win this year will they blow up the core, he said the team are going to need to consider it:
"“If we don’t win it this year, and I’m not speaking for nobody, just real talk, they have to consider it. Because that would be what, five years since Chris [Paul] came? Blake [Griffin]’s been here that long, and five years for myself.A lot of teams don’t get that kind of time. The good thing about it, though, I think is the last two champions, the Spurs and the Warriors, we beat. So… obviously we have to go through more teams than that, but we’re not that far. It’s encouraging. It’s very encouraging.”"
Crawford is right. In both the honest answer of saying the team will need to address the core and the genuine potential of the team, and the fact that the Clippers should also feel encouraged by how they’re playing right now.
They just beat the Spurs 105-86 with a commanding late-game performance. And even though Kawhi Leonard was out, Griffin being absent meant the Clips were missing a superstar, too. As for the Warriors, a frantic comeback in their latest game, including Pablo Prigioni inbounds steals and clutch threes, meant the Clippers only lost 115-112, which is far closer than most other contenders have come.
This is only two games, though, and even after two narrow losses to the Warriors earlier this season (112-108 on November 4 and 124-117 on November 19), the Clippers still lost and lasting through a playoff series is far tougher. If they blow up the core, maybe they can acquire new stars and finally fill the second unit with genuine championship level talent.
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In all honesty, it’s hard to see anyone, except for possibly the Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder if Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook get insanely hot all series, defeating the Warriors in the West this year. They just excel in all nuances of the game, with unbelievable ball movement, incredible range, elite defense, selfless play, depth, and the mastery of small-ball thanks to a new star in Draymond Green who can control the floor in so many ways.
Add the transcendent Stephen Curry into the mix, and it doesn’t look like anyone, including the Clippers, has a good chance of defeating them this year.
As Crawford said and as we all know, there really is a lot riding on this season for the Clippers. Just last week in a narrow 115-112 loss to Golden State, they proved that they can compete with them unlike most teams in the NBA.
Next: Who would Clippers want to face in round 1 of the playoffs?
But whether that’s enough to win a seven-game series is a completely different story.
Whether or not it’s enough for the future is an even more different (and far more complicated) story all over again.