The Los Angeles Clippers‘ season is over, regardless of a valiant effort within the first spherical of the playoffs towards the Phoenix Suns with stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George each sidelined by the tip of it. At his end-of-season press convention on Thursday, staff president Lawrence Frank stated that, whereas they competed admirably within the postseason, that very same power wasn’t all the time there within the 82-game slog that’s the common season.
“What I do not need to do is have the accidents or how arduous we fought within the postseason to masks a disappointing common season,” Frank advised reporters, by way of The Athletic’s Regulation Murray. “We’ve got to be sincere with ourselves, and we’ve got to look within the mirror. It begins with me. And we’ve got to get again to honoring and respecting the common season.”
The Clippers completed with a 44-38 file, which was ok for fifth within the unusually flattened Western Convention standings. Regardless of their depth, they’d the statistical profile of a barely below-average staff: seventeenth in offense, seventeenth in protection, seventeenth in level differential. A lot of this needed to do with accidents — Leonard and George performed 995 minutes collectively in 38 video games — however, in Frank’s estimation, that wasn’t all of it.
“I simply suppose we have to compete more durable each single evening,” Frank stated, by way of the Los Angeles Occasions‘ Andrew Greif. “I believe we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the followers. We need to be a championship group and we’ve got to speculate deeper into the method. I imply, the final 28 years, the NBA champion has been a top-three seed. So it’s important to earn it, the common season issues. And never that our guys do not suppose it issues, however I simply suppose we, all of us, beginning with me, we will compete more durable daily. We will maintain one another accountable daily. And that is what we’ve got to do.
“And I believe you concentrate on while you watched us within the playoff sequence, even when you return to final yr’s staff that received 42 video games, the trademark of this group must be about competing, arduous work, toughness. And it isn’t that we did not do it at instances this yr — we did, there have been some actually good moments, there’s some actually good particular person tales. However as a staff, by way of what our purpose is, we will compete more durable in every part we do. We all know we will.”
Frank stated that, “no matter who performs,” the Clippers must make competing more durable a part of their identification. Whereas he stated they’d prefer to convey again Russell Westbrook, Mason Plumlee and Eric Gordon they usually stay dedicated to constructing round Leonard and George, the entrance workplace might want to “step again and take a look at all of it,” together with the roster.
“Quite a lot of instances, there’s all the time a deal with the playoffs ‘trigger that is when everybody’s watching, however we’ve got to be sincere about the place we’re at,” Frank stated, by way of The Athletic. “We’ll consider the season, we’ll consider the roster, we’ll get this staff higher, we’ll discover all prospects, we’re open-minded, we’re inventive.”
Upon seeing that Frank stated the staff must respect the common season, you may instantly begin interested by load administration, the observe of resting gamers and/or limiting their minutes to be able to handle or stop accidents. Leonard grew to become the face of load administration in Toronto in 2018-19, and, as a consequence of continual knee issues and a torn ACL within the 2021 playoffs, Los Angeles has taken an identical method with him.
This isn’t, nevertheless, what Frank is speaking about. “Accidents are actual,” he stated, by way of Tomer Azarly of Clutch Factors. Leonard was coming off a torn proper ACL, and his season finally ended due to a torn meniscus in his proper knee.
“Typically what will get misplaced [is] there is a distinction between being injured and what individuals time period ‘load administration,'” Frank stated, by way of Joey Linn of Sports activities Illustrated’s FanNation. “Kawhi needed to take care of three totally different accidents coming off ACL reconstruction. That is not load administration.”
None of that is to say that load administration and respecting the common season are totally unrelated. In 2023-24, the Clippers might want to do no matter they’ll to maximise the chances that Leonard and George can be wholesome initially of the playoffs and maintain up for a possible championship run. The problem, for coach Tyronn Lue and the gamers, is to not let any absences — be they due to accidents or damage prevention — drag down the group’s competitiveness within the common season. This season, that was a tough needle to string.