The hottest team in the NBA was left for dead around the holidays, looking old and slow with a window as a contender seemingly closed.
Barely a month later, the Clippers have managed to become the comeback story of the year. And yet getting that revival to complete feel-good status remains a work in progress.
Drama enveloped the Clippers early. In October, the NBA began to investigate a report that the team had circumvented the salary cap by compensating star forward Kawhi Leonard through an outside sponsorship deal. The investigation continues.
By early December, their reunion with former star Chris Paul soured and he was sent home from a road trip with the team no longer having a use for his services. Paul’s locker remains but sits empty each game night.
On the court, it was even more embarrassing. The Clippers won just six times over their first 27 games, with 10 of those games coming without Leonard because of more injury issues. While knee pain has railroaded Leonard in recent years, he was slowed by foot and ankle pain this year.
When the Clippers lost 121-101 at Oklahoma City on Dec. 18, they were on a five-game losing streak with losses in 10 of their last 11 games. What followed next was improbable.
On Dec. 20, Clippers blogger and podcaster Robert Flom was at his wit’s end. “If they go 15-3 in any stretch this season I will print and eat this tweet,” Flom posted to X.
Leonard has said he didn’t know anything about the tweet, even as fans in the rowdy “The Wall” section of the two-year-old Intuit Dome chanted “Eat the tweet” last week. But Leonard sure played like a man on a mission.
Starting with their 103-88 victory over the cross-town Los Angeles Lakers shortly after the tweet appeared, the Clippers not only went on a 15-3 run — they added a 16th victory in the stretch with a 115-103 win at Utah on Tuesday.
Once desperate for victories, Tuesday’s triumph over the Jazz was about revenge. After all, the Clippers’ early-season mess started with an uncompetitive 129-108 loss at Utah on opening night.
From hopeless to vengeful, all in a short period of time, is the arc of cinema.
A 6-21 start seemed like the signal to tank and maximize their first-round draft pick. But the Clippers did not have that option. The champion Thunder own L.A.’s first-round pick following the unfulfilling Paul George trade before the 2019-20 season.
Making matters worse is that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander also went to the Thunder in the deal.
This season, the Clippers actually have nothing to lose for.
With Leonard back to full strength, the game plan from head coach Tyronn Lue was to lean into the six-time All-Star like never before. On defense, a frenetic new approach — while playing without big man Ivica Zubac for a stretch — awakened the team.
Leonard’s game has always operated with a team-wide approach. Sure, he scored, but he was just as inclined to get others involved. Even with the Clippers, while playing alongside James Harden and Zubac, Leonard had been just as willing to pass as to score.
A quicker tempo on offense now has Leonard leading the charge. His 8.6 attempts from three-point range over the team’s recent run of success is well above his 4.3 career mark and his 6.0 number over his first 17 games of the season.
Since Dec. 20, Leonard is scoring 31.1 points per game. It has him up to 27.9 on the season, ahead of his 27.1 mark in 2019-20 when he first joined the Clippers and his 21.2 mark in 2015-16 with the San Antonio Spurs, when he finished second in MVP voting.
Harden has settled into 19.3 points per game since Dec. 20 as the team’s secondary scoring threat. It is below his season average of 25.4 points. He has also improved to 3.3 turnovers a game during the run, as opposed to 3.9 over his first 25 games.
Now comes the hard part. The Clippers are not young. Only recently have fresh faces like Jordan Miller, Kobe Sanders and Yanic Konan Niederhauser been asked to make significant contributions. Young energy has been refreshing.
But the veterans make it go. Can Leonard, at 34, keep delivering with a heavy load? Can Harden, at 36, continue to run the offense? Zubac is still 28, but three-point threat Nico Batum is 37.
Almost at .500 for the first time this season, the Clippers will continue to press their luck and step on the gas. They have no other choice.
And for the record, Flom printed the tweet and ate it Monday during an episode of the Clips N Dip podcast, even after Leonard doubted the health benefits.
