It's been nearly five years since Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer stepped up to the podium and excitedly ushered in a new era of Clippers basketball. In what at the time looked to be one of the biggest heists since Danny Ocean and his crew hit the Bellagio, the Clips had come away with reigning NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard AND 1st Team All-NBA performer Paul George in the same offseason, which left Ballmer a giddy, screaming mess as he introduced his two new stars.
Once Steve Ballmer took a cold shower, both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George had the opportunity to express their admiration for one another, and speak about their excitement that they were now teammates. When it was George's turn to speak, he boldly proclaimed that his partnership with Leonard, “Just seems like it was destined. Like we were supposed to play together.”
For five seasons, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George did play together, though not nearly as frequently as the Los Angeles Clippers would hope. Out of a possible 435 regular season and NBA Playoff games, Leonard and George shared the floor just 207 times. That's a 48 percent clip for a duo that Steve Ballmer will end up paying over $400 million for. $400 million for 124 regular season wins and a 13-13 record when they both played in the Playoffs. So when ESPN's Zach Lowe, in the aftermath of Paul George leaving the Clippers high and dry to sign with the Philadelphia 76ers, says that George's exit — and LA's reluctance to keep him at the price George hoped for — was an organizational “admittance of failure,” he is not exaggerating in the slightest.
“This feels like to me an active surrender, an admission of failure, an admission that this team was over and couldn’t win again,” Lowe said on the most recent episode of The Lowe Post Podcast. “So they extended Kawhi for three years, 153 (million). I looked it up today, it was January 10th, 2024. The Clippers were 24-13, in the middle of a 16-3 rampage after the Harden adjustment period. I bet they would’ve loved to sign Paul George then. They don’t, they can’t come to an agreement. Flash forward to the end of the season, Kawhi gets hurt again, they lose again, they can’t recapture that 16-3 form after the All-Star Break, they're kind of a .500ish team after the All-Star Break and it feels over. I think this is an admission of like, ‘it’s done.'”
Where do the Los Angeles Clippers go from here?
So if this iteration of the Los Angeles Clippers is ‘done' then the question becomes, what comes next? The Clips will opening up the Intuit Dome in Inglewood this summer, a $2 billion, 18,000 seat arena that will give the ‘Lakers little brother' their own home arena for the first time since 1999, when the Clippers were still playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena. Losing Paul George will certainly put a damper on some of the excitement of the Intuit Dome's grand opening, but the Clippers still have a competitive roster that will look awesome on the nights when everyone is playing.
James Harden signed a two-year deal worth $70 million right as free agency opened, and Kawhi Leonard signed an extension back in January worth $152.4 million that will keep him in LA through the 2026-27 season. The Clippers have also added Nic Batum, Derrick Jones Jr. and Kevin Porter Jr. in free agency, building on a supporting cast for Harden and Leonard that includes Norman Powell, Ivica Zubac and Terrence Mann. Russell Westbrook also opted in to the final year of his current deal, but reports suggest that the Clippers are actively looking to find a trade partner for the 2016-17 NBA MVP.
When the Clippers play their first regular season game at the Intuit Dome in October, I'm sure that Steve Ballmer will once again be in the front row, and at least until tip-off, he'll be all smiles. But once the game gets going, I can't imagine he'll be as fired up as he was in July 2019, when an NBA Title and a potential dynasty felt like it was in play.
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