It was quite a remarkable season in Los Angeles, not for the Lakers, but for their lowly cousins, the Clippers.
For only the eighth time in 42 seasons, one of sport’s most dismal franchises made an appearance in the playoffs and for only the third time in their playoff history, the Clippers made it out of the first round.
Be it when they were in Buffalo (as the Braves), San Diego or in their current home, the Clippers always seemed destined to fail but now they have the core built for a solid team. The question is, can they keep this team together long term?
This will be a big summer in La La Land as a whole host of players are set to test free agency while Blake Griffin is eligible to sign a four- or five-year extension on July 1st and perhaps most importantly, Chris Paul has only one year left on his current deal.
If Griffin does not sign the extension this summer he will become a restricted free agent after next season and this could be the beginning of the end for this current squad of Clippers.
Griffin remained quiet on whether he would sign a new deal when asked after his team’s Game 4 loss to San Antonio which put an end to the Clippers season.
“I haven’t given it one ounce of thought,” Griffin told ESPN.com. “That’s been the furthest thing from my mind, honestly. I know that’s kind of the popular thing to say, but I haven’t thought about it. I’ll get to that when it comes.”
Of course what Griffin does will create a domino effect. If he were to not sign and become a restricted free agent after next season, Paul might reconsider his options as well.
Both players will likely wait to see what moves the Clippers front office make this summer in order to bolster the team as a whole slew of other roster decisions need to be made.
Maurice Williams can opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent this summer but is expected to return.
Randy Foye, Kenyon Martin, Chauncey Billups, Reggie Evans and Nick Young will all come off the books this summer and if Williams does indeed, opt in, this team will be in tough to keep this roster intact as the salaries could prove too costly.
Martin and Billups came at a big discount last season and it would be stunning to see them take a huge pay cut to stay put. Likewise for Reggie Evans. He proved he was worthy of a bigger deal as he was a beast in the opening round of the playoffs against Memphis.
The Clippers will also need to make a decision about who will be drawing up the X’s and O’s next season. Do they pick up their option for head coach Vinny Del Negro?
General manager Neil Olshey was pretty noncommittal on Monday when he told the L.A. Times, “I think Vinny did a great job, and that’s as far as I’m going to go today.”
Del Negro did a decent job steering the team through this season but he was seen to be out of his league once he ran into Gregg Popovich in the second round. Of course, most coaches are made to look pretty ordinary when they are forced to match wits with the Spurs bench boss.
I guess before we get too far ahead of ourselves, we should also talk about the skeleton in the closet for the Clippers. Part of the reason this franchise has toiled in the shadow of the Lakers for as long as they have has been Donald Sterling. The Clippers owner has been notoriously tight with his money and his behaviour at times has been erratic to say the least.
At one point, a couple of seasons ago, he heckled Baron Davis from his midcourt seats. Not exactly conduct becoming of an owner but that’s just an example of the troubling way Sterling carries himself.
So over the coming weeks we will discover if the Clippers are ready to make the leap into the upper-echelon of the NBA or if they are just temporarily residing amongst the league’s elite.