If Kawhi Leonard can get back to the court around February, the LA Clippers should win the Pacific Division.
The odds list on WynnBET for the Pacific Division don’t seem to see it that way, though, or perhaps they think that Leonard won’t be back at all next year. According to that list, the Clippers have the fourth-best odds to win the division at +750.
They have the Lakers at the top spot, the Suns coming in second, and the Warriors as the number three team.
The LA Clippers should not be this low in the Pacific Division odds.
The LA Clippers will be winning the Pacific Division.
The Golden State Warriors have no reason being ahead of them. They have gone back-to-back years without making the playoffs and are also down one of their stars right now.
The Clippers have already played without Kawhi, as they did this past year and made the Western Conference Finals. The Warriors have already played without Klay Thompson, and missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons while also finishing as one of the worst teams in basketball two years ago.
The Lakers were first round exits last year when they didn’t have as significant of injuries as the Clips did. Sure, they were down AD, but the Clips didn’t have a much better player in Leonard as well as no Serge Ibaka. We still made the Western Conference Finals and took the Suns to six games while also not having Marcus Morris Sr. 100% for almost the entire series, and missing Ivica Zubac for Games 5 and 6.
Look, the Clippers are going to be battling adversity this season with no Kawhi, but they’ve already proven that it’s adversity they can handle.
As for the Lakers, they were the lesser team last year by a wide margin and just messed up their court spacing with the Russell Westbrook trade. Westbrook is a very good player overall, but he’s too similar in his offensive role as LeBron James at this point in James’ career. The fit is going to be messy.
Westbrook likes to handle the ball, be aggressive on drives, and throw up a lot of shots regardless of if they’re high-percentage looks or not. James also likes to handle the ball these days, is aggressive on drives, and shoots a high volume of shots.
Westbrook has already failed to adjust to play with another ball dominant scorer in James Harden over in Houston. We’ve seen this move before. Just like how we’ve seen a Kawhi-less Clipper team before and watched them thrive.
The only team they weren’t better than last year was the Phoenix Suns. That being said, Chris Paul is only getting older, and that may prove to be not such a great thing. While Devin Booker and Deandre Ayton getting older are good things, the Clippers will be getting better too.
PG made noticeable improvements in the postseason last year, carrying the team when Leonard went down. Terance Mann is a developing star in this league, and Reggie Jackson took giant strides in the playoffs. These players are still young and Ty Lue is going to continue to keep coaching them up.
Speaking of Lue, he’s very young himself. The sky is truly the limit for him, and this team’s roster is deeper than the Suns’. If Leonard comes back, all the pieces are going to come together, and we should have the more complete team than the Suns.
We’ll have the best player, and as previously mentioned, the deeper bench with Jason Preston going to be back by then.
The Clippers should be second on this list, and first if WynnBET believes Leonard will be back after 50 games or so.
Regardless of whether the team finishes as the first place team in the division, however, they will be best built for a playoff run if Leonard can come back and be 100% in time for the postseason.