The Clippers over the past few seasons have not been able to have a good, healthy small forward. Are they cursed?
For the last 5 years, the LA Clippers have had an astonishingly large rotating door of small forwards. This long list includes: Jared Dudley, Danny Granger, Hedo Turkoglu, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Jeff Green, Paul Pierce, Wesley Johnson, Luc Mbah A Moute, Matt Barnes, and Danilo Gallinari.
Every year, analysts predicted that the Clippers may have finally found the athletic 3&D that they needed, but it’s always proven to be false. In most cases, the player either has career lows on the team, shortly retires, or never returns to form (Matt Barnes being the exception). In fact, when you Google the words “Clippers small forward position”, you’ll find a plethora of articles from the past 5 years addressing the issue.
So, this bears the question: Is the small forward position cursed for the LA Clippers, or has the team just been selecting the wrong players over the past 5 years? Let’s uncover this “Small Forward Curse’ and investigate some of the players listed above.