The Stakes Are High for the Clippers

The pressure is on for Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Los Angeles in Year 4 together.

The Clippers, led by Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, are among the early favorites to win the NBA title. But what happens if they fail? The Crossover staff discusses the Kawhi-PG Experiment in Year 4. 

The following transcript is an excerpt from the Open Floor and Crossover podcast. Listen to the full episode on podcast players everywhere or on SI.com.

Rohan Nadkarni: Guys, I'm gonna put this out. This is now Year 4 of the Clippers Experiment. People are looking at this roster, potentially the most loaded roster in the NBA—they have 11 or 12 guys that I think would be in any rotation across the league. If the Clippers don't make the Finals this season, was the Kawhi-PG Experiment a dud?

Chris Herring: Can I start with this one?

Nadkarni: Please.

Herring: No. Generally speaking, I think for most teams I would say, yeah. But these are also the Clippers that were coming out of the Donald Sterling ashes only a few years ago, that were not ever making the playoffs before Chris Paul got there. So you would take that risk 101 times out of 100. I think any team would, if you could have orchestrated it the way they did.

I still don't remember being that floored by any one set of moves as I was with that. The Heat thing happened—we had heard rumblings about LeBron and (Chris) Bosh and (Dwyane) Wade. KD going to the Warriors—we'd heard stuff about that the season before that offseason hit. The idea of Kawhi going to the Clippers and getting Paul George to ask out of Oklahoma City to orchestrate that, that was such a seismic thing. And yes, I think we all would've expected that at some point that yields something as far as titles are concerned. But we also have known for a while that Kawhi has had injury issues. Crazy stuff happens in the NBA. … I don't think it means that the risk was somehow bad or that the Clippers should somehow regret it.

Again, it's the Clippers. They had to be thrilled and I think probably still should be thrilled that they have the ability to put a roster together like the one they did, whether they make the Finals or not.

Chris Mannix: I think it's a two-year window now for the Clippers because that's the number of guaranteed years that Paul George and Kawhi Leonard have left on their contract, player options for the third year. But who knows what happens there. So I give them a two-year window to make the Finals, to win a championship, to validate this really expensive roster being put together.

If you look at this Clippers roster and you watched them in preseason, you gotta really look for reasons not to think they're gonna win. They're incredibly deep on the wings. George and Leonard are two of the most complete wing players in the NBA. The guys around them—Marcus Morris, Norman Powell, Luke Kennard, Nic Batum, Robert Covington—they have got a lot of versatile wing players, the kind of players that most NBA teams crave nowadays. Their point guard situation is a little questionable. Reggie Jackson, John Wall—will either one of those guys distinguish himself during the season? But I like (Ivica) Zubac in the middle. Terance Mann is still there. They've got just one of the deeper rosters in the NBA.

Look, if they flamed out in the first round, that would be a catastrophe. No question about it. But if they got beat in the conference finals this year, I would still say, All right, they've got one more year to put this together. This is the first year of this entire group being back, being healthy, being together. I'd give them one more season to figure it out.

Howard Beck: I wanna take the macro view here and just say this: If the Clippers flame out in the postseason this year, flame out again, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard go their separate ways, whatever—never having made a dent, never having gotten further than that conference finals run that they made in 2020—this is all still a rousing, spectacular, unqualified success.

And I'll tell you why.

Because up until 2019 the Clippers had never signed anybody. No one. And they signed two of the most coveted, most talented free agents in the league at the same time, or traded for one and signed the other.

Do you know what the Clippers were up until that moment? They were the team that made a nice, cute run with Chris Paul, who was there not because he wanted to be there, but got traded. Blake Griffin, who got drafted. The Clippers, even after Donald Sterling was forced out and Steve Ballmer bought them, were still carrying decades of laughing stock—well-earned laughing stock—status. No one considered them a destination. No one considered them a place that would ever figure it out. And George and Leonard both wanting to be there—two guys who had been tied repeatedly to the Lakers, as guys who wanted to go back to Southern California and play for the glamor franchise—chose together the Clippers, who will now, by the way, have their own arena—something they've never, ever had in LA—in 2024. And maybe that’s not possible without moves like this, where they established they are now a respectable franchise, a destination franchise.

These guys could never win anything. And it happens, right? Any team that could have would've acquired those two in tandem. So we can say competitive failure, fine. But dud? No, not a dud, because this has forever changed the way the Clippers are viewed and when they're in their brand-spanking new glitzy arena, we will see them in a completely different light based on what they've accomplished over these last several years. They're now a destination. Guys are choosing them. They're not squandering all of the wealth of being an LA team anymore.

Kawhi Leonard is healthy and ready to lead the Clippers.  :: Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports

Mannix: Howard, you’re the parent that loves the participation trophy, aren't you?

So they don't make a Finals with this group, you're still gonna believe it's some form of success. That is insane!

I don't know what the Kawhi-Paul George acquisitions did for the Clippers cache. They're still like the fourth-class citizen in Los Angeles. The Lakers stink and they're still by far and away the media darlings of Los Angeles. The Clippers are a title favorite and nobody really is paying them much attention right now.

I know what you're saying. The Clippers are more respectable than they have been at any point in time in recent decades, really, maybe in franchise history. But come on, man. Like if they don't succeed on the floor—and success is a Finals appearance or a championship in the next two years—this will be a disaster. They will have gotten, what, four or five years out of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, paid them both like $200 million apiece and won nothing? All for what? Positive PR? Are you kidding me?

Nadkarni: I don't know how I always find myself aligning with Mannix on these podcasts, but I could not agree more with Chris here.

I think it would be a massive dud. These guys were putting up billboards all across the city saying, “Earned not given,” positioning themselves against the Lakers as this model franchise that built the team the right way. The Lakers fell backwards into a championship, even though they have no idea how to put together a roster around LeBron James and Anthony Davis. They have also dealt with injury issues. Yes, it's unfortunate that Kawhi and Paul George have both missed time. Yes, that is an important caveat. But to me, if they don't make the Finals this year, Chris hit the nail on the head, look at their roster, how could they not?

I just think that at some point they have to win. You put those guys together to win a championship at the very least. That's the standard we've held all these superteams to, whether it was LeBron's Heat, Durant's Warriors, etc. The Nets are like their saving grace right now, or probably the reason we're not bagging on the Clippers even more. But I think the pressure's on this year.

They've done things for the Clippers franchise that are important, but at the end of the day, they gotta win.

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