Blame pg. . .
Kawhi Leonard, Paul George issues around Los Angeles Clippers, is a story that hasn’t been reported by any major media this month. Earlier this week, the Los Angeles Clippers and Doc Rivers formally parted ways. The decision was mutual, but Doc knew his time was over during the spring.
Last March, before the season was closed down, due to the pandemic; the Clippers lost a national TV game against the Los Angeles Lakers. In our opinion, that was the best basketball the Lakers played all year, and the Clippers didn’t look in synch at all. After the loss, the team had a major blowup on their plane trip to a next game the following day. This led to Montrezl Harrell and Patrick Beverley calling out Paul George in front of everybody.
That argument would last an entire plane trip to the next city, as many of the team had checked out – including coach Doc Rivers. One player even yelled to PG “Nigga, you take too many shots.” The argument with PG and Harrel almost became physical and was never fixed. By then, Big Trez had already made calls for his next destination for a team in New York, not named the Knicks.
With no one in control over the situation, we saw the inevitable outcome that happened in round two.
Jerry West was still dealing with the tragic death of Kobe Bryant and wasn’t in the right mindset this year to step in and scream at people. This led to the team believing talent would get them to the NBA Finals and a Championship.
However, when key players aren’t buying in, a team will collapse like the one we saw earlier this month against the Denver Nuggets. In all honesty, the Clippers were supposed to lose to Dallas before Kristaps Porziņģis got injured. After losing to the Nuggets a few weeks ago, Paul George had a locker-room speech with the team about their failure, which was met with eye rolls.
It’s to the point, where Kawhi Leonard is literally the only person Pandemic P is talking to. Speaking of which, no one in major media knew what happened to Kawhi. In game 5 of the Nuggets series, when the team was up 3-1, he re-injured his right quadricep. This led to him losing all lateral quickness and jumping ability.
This was the same leg that kept him out of action for nearly two years with the San Antonio Spurs. For Kawhi, he felt a responsibility to at least try and attempt to compete for the bubble title. He was expecting PG to step up and give him less responsibility on both ends of the floor.
However, with Doc knowing the writing was on the fall, he gave up before the playoffs started. With Kawhi, the TV media called him a choker blowing a 3-1 series lead; but failed to report his major injury and further their LeBron James propaganda.
The team is already expecting to lose Montrezl Harrel in free agency to a contender in the east. However, they’re listening to offers for Paul George as well, because he and Patrick Beverly can’t co-exist anymore.
The biggest kicker of this entire situation, is that Kawhi can opt out of his contract next fall for free agency 2021 and leave the team. If they fail to at least make it to the NBA Finals next year, Kawhi is not wasting his last prime years in a rebuilding situation. He’ll be gone to another suitor.
What should happen: Hire David Fizdale, trade Paul George for assets, get a star in off-season.
What’s going to happen: Ty Lue or Sam Cassell gets the job, PG stays, they trade away Patrick Beverly and lose Montrezl Harrel in free agency.
the game that ended the clippers season