Busy offseason shows these are not the Clippers of yore

They added likely starters Jared Dudley and J.J. Redick as well as rookie shooting guard Reggie Bullock to a perimeter cast that already featured Jamal

Ian Thomsen | Jul 12, 2013

Busy offseason shows these are not the Clippers of yore /

Neither Chris Paul (right) nor Blake Griffin has ever advanced past the second round of the playoffs. — Neither Chris Paul (right) nor Blake Griffin has ever advanced past the second round of the playoffs :: Andrew D. Bernstein/Getty Images

They added likely starters Jared Dudley and J.J. Redick as well as rookie shooting guard Reggie Bullock to a perimeter cast that already featured Jamal Crawford (who deserved to win the Sixth Man award last season), Willie Green and Matt Barnes. It is not unlike the formula that defined the Celtics and liberated Rajon Rondo to become an elite point guard under Rivers.

Will they fill out their frontline? Will they bond to challenge the Spurs and Thunder? As important as those issues will be, they are less important than the rhetorical question that promises to be asked throughout the inspired season to come: Can you believe these are Donald Sterling's Clippers?

Published Jul 12, 2013

IAN THOMSEN

Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated Senior Writer Ian Thomsen, who joined the magazine in 1998, is one of SI's top basketball scribes. Along with writing columns and features for SI, Thomsen is a frequent contributor to SI.com. Before joining SI, Thomsen spent six years in Europe as the sports columnist for the International Herald Tribune, the world's largest international English-language daily. While at the paper Thomsen wrote about an array of sports for a global audience, including the major world and European soccer tournaments, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, Olympic Games, Ryder Cups, Grand Slam tennis events, Grand Prix auto races and, very rarely, cricket. Thomsen, who graduated from Northwestern with a journalism degree in 1983, was a feature writer for The National Sports Daily during its short, expensive run of 1990-91. His first job was with The Boston Globe, where he covered Doug Flutie's Boston College Eagles and all three of the Celtics-Lakers NBA Finals of the 1980s. Thomsen was a feature writer at SI before taking on the NBA beat fulltime in 2000. With Luis Fernando Llosa and Melissa Segura, Thomsen covered the 2001 scandal of overaged Little League pitcher Danny Almonte and wrote the first SI cover story on Kobe Bryant in 1998. Thomsen lives with his wife and two children near Boston.