I have a challenge for you. Go tell somebody that you think the Los Angeles Clippers will be better than expected in 2025-26, just to hear how they react. "The team full of grandpas?" "They say that every year!" "They're still the Clippers." Their response is scientifically proven to be one of those three sentences, give or take a few expletives. The guffawing is sort of fair, to be honest, as this franchise has seen stars come and go for the past decade, but the on-court success has topped out at one Western Conference Finals appearance.
Now I'm going to propose something that you may be inclined to dismiss. What if, after years of hype and then relative disappointment, after becoming the prime destination for former stars who may be on their last legs, after all hope was lost... the Clippers have become underdogs?
The hype train has died down, that's for sure. What was once a bullet train after the Clippers formed the duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George has turned into, like, your Amtrak that's somehow always exactly 90 minutes late. That lack of hype is good for the underdog case — a team that's expected to win at a high level can't really be considered underdogs.
I know what you're thinking; a team from Los Angeles can't be underdogs solely based on geography. But when the other team in the same city is getting (and has always gotten) far more attention, I think market goes out the window.
Clippers are loaded woth has-beens hoping to prove everyone wrong
Bradley Beal was once the highest-paid player in the NBA, and now he's on a buyout market deal. Chris Paul was once the best point guard in basketball, and now he's about a decade past his prime. Brook Lopez and Nicolas Batum fit that label, too. John Collins has been almost competely dismissed in the minds of NBA fans (playing in Utah doesn't help with that.) Kris Dunn was effectively out of the league a few years ago. James Harden is one of the most stunningly talented offensive basketball players the league has ever seen... with more postseason chokes to his name than postseason successes. And Kawhi Leonard, of course, is the one-time best player in the world who just could never stay healthy.
That's pretty much the entire Clippers rotation in 2025-26, and every one of them has something to prove. To different degrees, of course, and the amount of pressure on each one varies greatly, but there should be a fire under each of them nonetheless. Somehow, the Los Angeles Clippers have come all the way around in a full circle moment from somewhat dislikable "superteam" to scrappy old underdogs. I get that it's hard to view a team with so many household names as an underdog, but it feels like the beginning of the end of the road for so many of these guys that I'm finding it harder not to have a soft spot for them.
It's not going to be perfect; this team really is old as hell, and there are sure to be some bumps and bruises along the way. But I'm ready to plant my flag in the 2025-26 Clippers as the most fun team this franchise will produce in the modern era.