The Los Angeles Clippers have been the biggest disappointment in the NBA this season, currently sitting at 5-16 after Monday night's blowout loss to the Miami Heat. Some anticipated that the Clippers' season would finally start to turn around once Kawhi Leonard got back from injury, but Leonard's 36 points against the Heat weren't enough to keep Los Angeles from losing by 17 points in a game that wasn't as close as the score suggested.
With the team's playoff hopes already on life support in early December, some fans are wondering who will have to bite the bullet for the Clippers' struggles, and recently, a report from Law Murray of The Athletic shed some light on that.
“(Clippers owner Steve) Ballmer told The Athletic that he speaks with Lue and basketball president Lawrence Frank about how to turn things around. Ballmer also made it clear that the job to turn it around is on Lue and Frank,” reported Murray.
Murray also noted that “Only five teams have started 5-15 or worse and made the playoffs since the field expanded to 16 teams for the 1983-84 season,” one of which coincidentally was a New Orleans Pelicans squad back in 2022 that defeated Los Angeles in the play-in game.
Overall, things have been mightily disappointing for the Clippers so far this season, which is strange, considering they're returning the same core of players that helped them win 50 games a season ago.
Of course, Los Angeles' bench depth is essentially nonexistent this year, and they've also dealt with injury absences to Leonard, but they still have far too much talent on their roster to be among the worst teams in the league at this point.
The Clippers will look to pick up their sixth win of the season on Wednesday evening when they continue their East Coast trip with a game vs the Atlanta Hawks.
