LOS ANGELES, CA – Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Russell Westbrook and the Los Angeles Clippers entered this season with a renewed focus and urgency that had folks thinking, “Hey, maybe this is the year.” With one trade for James Harden, however, the team appears to have abandoned that urgency, falling back into last year's mindset of, “We've got time,” while completely throwing everyone's roles in a blender.
Training camp began with the Clippers placing major emphasis on defense and playing an up-tempo style of basketball. Practices were full of running to the point that players playfully vented about them during press conferences. “We're running a lot,” and, “have you ever seen a team run this much in camp?” were funny quotes thrown around by some of the older guys on the team.
Through the first seven games of the season — parts of four preseason and three regular-season games — the Clippers looked like a team building up to something. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George were in a great rhythm together, picking their spots throughout games while point guard Russell Westbrook played some of the best and most controlled basketball in his career.
Heading into the season opener, reports out of Los Angeles were that the team was content with its roster and wanted to see what it had. The Clippers did so for four games, putting together the best net rating in the NBA, before pulling off the stunning trade for James Harden at 11 p.m. PST, when nearly all of the players involved in the deal were already fast asleep.
Enter James Harden, a dominant individual scorer and playmaker, especially in the halfcourt. Enter PJ Tucker, a hard-nosed 38-year-old veteran who makes every opposing player he defends work. Well, at least that's who the Clippers thought they were getting in this deal.
What's the problem? Players don't seem to know
James Harden has significantly slowed down the Clippers' up-tempo style of play that was a heavy focus in training camp. In the process, Harden has looked like a shell of himself, and the team has struggled adjusting to his addition.
PJ Tucker, meanwhile, has been hard to justify playing big minutes because he's just at the age where he's not defending at a high enough level and doesn't provide much on the offensive end when he refuses to shoot either. With Mason Plumlee out, however, the team has to rely on him for some minutes, which is a problem.
Quite simply the most surprising thing is the lineup data when the four “stars” are on the floor with starting center Ivica Zubac. Through four games, the starting lineup of Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Zubac has been outscored by 23 points in 46 minutes of play. The starting group featuring four future Hall-of-Famers hasn't clicked as quickly as they've wanted to, and none of the guys even have an answer as to why.
“That's a good question,” James Harden told ClutchPoints after the loss to Memphis, their fifth in a row. “It's something we're trying to figure out. If we knew the answer to that, then we could correct it.”
“I couldn’t even tell you,” Paul George added when asked by ClutchPoints. “I can’t even tell you. But it’s an ongoing process. Trying to figure that out. Thing about it is we’re all offensively gifted, so at some point, that question will be answered, but we haven’t all would say found it together yet.”
“Just figuring each other out,” Kawhi Leonard said. “There’s no magic to it. Just trying to play, figure each other out. Like I said, playing with one another.”
Head coach Tyronn Lue, who always shoulders the blame for individuals or the team not playing at the level they should be, came out after the Clippers' fifth loss in a row on Sunday and essentially enacted the closest thing to calling his players out.
“I think we're playing too slow,” Lue said. “Just playing too slow. Like, we get rebounds, you get stops, you got to push it. On makes, we got to push it, get up quick and attack early…We just can't just walk around offensively. Like you got to get to the next actions. You got things we work on for the last two months, well, the last three years. You know, we just got to do a better job of doing that.
“And if you don't do that, if you don't do it hard, you get beat every night, and we're seeing those results. So until we want to play hard on both ends of the floor, if we don't do things hard — cuts, screens, running the screen, sprinting the floor — then it is going to be tough nights, every single night. And so it's up to our guys to change their mentality in that regard.”
Lue, who appeared finished with his response as the next question began to be asked, gently cut the reporter off and sharply said, “Because we're teaching it, we're showing it, we're telling it. So now we've got to perform.”
Struggles were expected once the trade was executed. The Clippers, who have long needed to improve the power forward position, traded every single power forward on their roster not named Kawhi Leonard to Philadelphia.
Robert Covington, Nicolas Batum, Marcus Morris, and KJ Martin all wound up in Philly, who has improved to a perfect 6-0 since completing the trade. In turn, the Clippers received the worst power forward involved in the deal in PJ Tucker and a star guard in an already guard-heavy rotation.
Now the team is stuck with four players they consider stars — Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook — but seemingly have two that are borderline unplayable alongside one another and no “glue guys” around them to do the dirty work.
Covington and Batum were the type of role players the Clippers needed to keep around these superstars because they are highly skilled and incredibly smart. Whether it was taking on a challenge of defending the best player, forcing deflections, rotating at key moments, or simply being a level-headed voice during timeouts, the Clippers have missed every second of every minute those two have been gone.
The Sixers have outscored opponents by 51 points in the four games Nicolas Batum has played. Robert Covington, who is a +14 in six games, already has 11 steals as a Sixer, putting him right behind De'Anthony Melton for the team lead. Covington is tied for second in the NBA in deflections with 34 on the season, sitting only one behind league leaders Paul George and Jalen Williams.
Without the high-level “glue guys.” or “connectors” as Tyronn Lue calls them, the Clippers will struggle nightly when it comes to the hustle plays that get the crowd hyped, the loose balls recovered, the box-outs, and the extra rotations to force a missed shot late in the clock.
“You lose Nico, RoCo, Marcus, KJ, those what you call glue guys,” Tyronn Lue explained. “Guys that can connect, like connectors. And so when you have four Hall-of-Fame guys playing together, you miss that because they're used to having guys around them that do the small things like Nico and T-Mann and RoCo. You kind of miss that, so all four of those guys, now they have to do some of those small things to be a better team. They understand that, and we've been trying, but we've got to be better with that. But you kind of miss those connectors. They're used to having guys that connect it for 'em. So just getting better with that, which we will.”
It's a very small sample against some bottom-tier teams, but the Clippers had the sixth-best offensive rating, the best defensive rating, and the best net rating in the first four games of the season. After a healthy offseason for the stars and a terrific training camp from top to bottom, that team still had some gaps to fill — they were not a championship team in my eyes yet — but the group deserved a chance to see what it had, what it could become, as well as who would become available before it was blown up.
The Russell Westbrook-James Harden dilemma
Prior to the trade, Russell Westbrook had been everything the Clippers could've asked for to start the year. And while he hasn't suffered the most out of the four purely from a production standpoint, he's certainly viewed as the player who should have to sacrifice more than the others. With the acquisition of Harden, some have even called for Westbrook's move to the Clippers bench, which could use another playmaker and would help balance out the guard rotation better.
A person familiar with Tyronn Lue's thinking says moving Russell Westbrook to the bench is not an option at this time with the belief that he's the only player in the starting lineup that will actually push the pace consistently and attempt to ignite the up-tempo style of basketball that Lue wants to play. Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are not going to the bench. Ivica Zubac is the lone big man left on this roster with Mason Plumlee's unfortunate MCL sprain that he's probably lucky wasn't season ending.
James Harden has been a superstar since his move to Houston in 2012, where he first became a starter and never looked back. There isn't a belief that moving him to the bench is something that's going to happen either. The Clippers do, however, want to pair him up with a big man, whether it be Zubac or Moussa Diabate, in more second-unit lineups to initiate more pick-and-roll opportunities.
It's clear that Russell Westbrook and James Harden do not play well in the same lineup. Westbrook, for as good as he's been, is not respected as a shooter and oftentimes takes up space on the low block or the dunker's spot, making it incredibly difficult to create much out of the team's already limited drives to the basket.
“Well, the thing with James is just try to split those guys up as much as possible,” Tyronn Lue said. “I think because Russ has been great for us over the last 20 games he was with us and in the playoffs and then it started this season as well. So both of those guys with the ball in their hands has proven that they can get things done as far as making plays or scoring the basketball. And so just trying to split those guys up as much as possible and let those guys have their own unit.”
So just to keep track: The Clippers are treating both Westbrook and Harden as superstars who need to get theirs alongside Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. They need both Westbrook and Harden to play around 30 minutes a night, but they also need to split them up as much as possible.
The Clippers also don't have a veteran backup big man. They want to let Harden be Harden and pair him up with a big man, and they also need to avoid playing three-guard lineups, which have been disastrous. Bones Hyland is the odd man out of the Clippers rotation right now as a result, and Terance Mann is no longer starting like he was expected to.
There are just too many holes in this Clippers roster right now and not many avenues to improve it right away. With the Mason Plumlee injury, there's not enough size behind Ivica Zubac, who has been mediocre at best since the trade. As a starting point, the Clippers' stars just need to play better, play harder, shoot better and do more of the little things that win your team basketball games.
Kawhi Leonard, who has historically been an efficient scorer, is shooting a career-worst 46 percent from the field and 30 percent from three since James Harden joined the rotation. Paul George is at an abysmal 33.9 percent shooting from the field and just 23.3 percent from three. Russell Westbrook is shooting 43.6 percent from the field and 32.1 percent from three.
Pointing the finger at Tyronn Lue when his team is down their backup center after trading all of their power forwards and glue guys doesn't hold water. Lue is continuously trying to tinker with the rotations, pulling Russell Westbrook and Ivica Zubac early to keep those two together and pair James Harden with Moussa Diabate. Those lineups are still too small, don't have the necessary shooting, and/or aren't pushing in transition if they do get stops.
Terance Mann and PJ Tucker have had to split some backup four duties, and as much as they'd like to avoid it, Russell Westbrook and James Harden will have to share the floor at some points throughout the game if they're each going to play at least 30 minutes a night.
No fan favorites or locker-room vets left
Among all the trades and moves throughout the “213” era, the consistent disregard for retaining culture-builders, positive locker-room presences and fan favorites might be the most concerning. The priority should always be to improve a roster, but too many have come and gone without adequately valuing enough of what they bring off the court.
After the James Harden trade that sent Covington and Batum to the Sixers, President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank offered insight into the value of locker-room presences within the team and organizationally.
“It means a lot,” Lawrence Frank said. “I mean, we do not underrate chemistry. We don't underrate character. Trades have to be a two-way street. They have to make sense for the other side. The other side, if we value someone, they probably value the player. He's probably valued around the league. So it is always extremely difficult to trade. And yeah, there have been people who have been very, very important, and we still stay in close ties with them.
“But ultimately what you have to assess is what's best for the organization and what's best to help us with our goal and to have the opportunity to acquire one of the elite talents in this league. And I think we focus on players who are they in terms of what are their strengths, and if you optimize their strengths within the group, what does it look like? And I think acquiring James and also acquiring PJ, despite, to your point, the great contributions those guys made, we felt as hurtful and tough as it is, it was well worth the price we paid.”
Understanding that not every transaction is a win-win and certainly has its risks, has what's best for the organization been trading away crucial locker room contributors and fan favorites in Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams, Reggie Jackson, Nicolas Batum, and Robert Covington?
Was it best to not re-sign a proven Isaiah Hartenstein for less than what he took from the Knicks in order to take a chance on John Wall, who hadn't played in over a year? This move alone has had a long-lasting domino effect on the team.
Was it best to let Eric Gordon walk into free agency after 27 games — not even using him as a trade chip — just to save money and try to avoid the second apron, giving up Luke Kennard and the pick swap that turned into Cam Whitmore? (Right now, by the way, this looks even more pointless because the Clippers are a second apron team after the James Harden trade anyways).
The Clippers' rosters over the last few years have had zero continuity, not only because Kawhi Leonard and Paul George have had unfortunate injury luck but because players hardly stick around beyond 2 1/2 years. Luck has had a lot to do with where the Clippers have finished in the last few years, however, compare their constant roster turnover to recent NBA Finals teams: The Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat in 2023, the Golden State Warriors and Boston Celtics in 2022, the Milwaukee Bucks and Phoenix Suns in 2021.
All of those teams had some level of continuity with their stars and role players. The Clippers have had none of that, and constantly shuffling through pieces hasn't proven to work just yet. In fact, if an older role player says they'd like to retire a Clipper, that probably means they're going to be traded soon after.
Maybe Kawhi Leonard and Paul George finally figure it out and the Clippers make a run that puts everyone’s minds at ease. Having four future Hall-of-Famers and a coach like Tyronn Lue is exactly who you’d want leading the charge.
Right now, however, this team has too many problems with no simple answer or direction in sight.
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