This is going to be fun: Five takeaways from the LA Clippers’ Media Day
The LA Clippers are focused on winning a title
When the LA Clippers pack their things and move out of STAPLES Center in a few years, they plan on bringing some championship banners with them. And with this current team, there’s no reason why that shouldn’t happen.
This team knows who they are, and what they’re capable of. They know that a title is within reach.
They also understand that it’s not going to be easy and that life gets a lot more difficult once the regular season ends. So while their hopes might have been suppressed a bit at Media Day, their answers made it abundantly clear that they think they can win.
They’re just going to take things one game a time. Take Patrick Beverley’s word for it.
“I’m going to be honest,” Beverley said. “We have a really good team. Everyone here knows that. But it starts tomorrow. I’m going to take the pressure off everybody right now. We’re not going to talk about championships, we’re not going to talk about any of that right now. We’re talking about one day at a time… Tomorrow it’s time for business which is practice. We’re going to try to get the most out of each day, and if you have that mindset and do that, by the end of the day, end of the year, you put yourself in a good position to win a lot of basketball games.”
That strategy certainly seemed to work for Kawhi Leonard and the Toronto Raptors last season. Leonard played in 60 regular season games and never played both games of a back-to-back, but once the postseason came around, he appeared in 24 consecutive contests and averaged an absurd 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.9 assists and 1.7 steals en route to winning Toronto’s first-ever title.
Leonard does expect to play more than 60 games this season, especially since Paul George is expected to at least miss the month of October. But even then, it’s going to be a game-to-game basis. Unless a spot in the playoffs is on the line, no regular season game is ever going to be important enough to potentially sacrifice the health of a star player.
No rivalry is going to be as important to this team as winning a title, and neither will earning the Western Conference’s top seed. Leonard Raptors didn’t do it, and it worked out for them. So long as you have the best team heading into the postseason, it doesn’t matter much what position you’re in.
Their only goal is becoming champions. And from the sounds of things, nothing is going to keep them from pursuing that goal.
Next. Analyzing the LA Clippers' list of offseason acquisitions. dark
The LA Clippers’ slate of preseason games begins this Thursday when they host the Houston Rockets at 10:00 PM PT from Honolulu, Hawaii. After all this time, it’s finally here.