The L.A. Clippers Are Committed To A Backcourt They Don’t Want

In the grand scheme of life, NBA front office decision-makers are not the easiest people to feel sorry for.

General Managers, Presidents of Basketball Operations and the like are a select group of a few dozen with extremely privileged jobs. They have the kind of gilt-edged, untrainable-for jobs that fans, podcasters and writers can only dream about having (and are invariably entirely confident they could do better at). They do the trading part of video game simulators for a living. It must be amazing, we assume. And borne from that potent combination of admiration and jealousy is a distinct lack of sympathy. How bad of a life can an NBA general manager really have when this is what they do for a living?

Spare a thought, however, for the front office of the Los Angeles Clippers, whose once-promising vision for their team is being undercut by the politics of others.

Back in July 2019, the Clippers picked a lane when they made two huge splashes in a week. They traded a package of things (highlighted by the excellent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who has since ascended to superstardom) in exchange for Paul George from the Oklahoma City Thunder, and then signed Kawhi Leonard as a free agent, giving themselves two of the game’s very best in the prime of their careers.

Since that day, a championship window has been open. But due mostly to the injuries of that duo, no championship has ever been realistically attainable. The Clippers have as many conference finals appearances as they do lottery seasons in that time, and for the most part have not threatened. The window has been more of a idea than a reality, and Shai’s rise to the very top of the shop has seen that trade age particularly badly.

George and Leonard remain, though, and thus so does a theoretical competitive window. In turn, so do the mandate and the desire to pursue it. And this combination of star power and urgency can affect the objectivity of player personnel decisions. Everyone wants the same outcome, but not the same process to achieve it, and when the front office, the owner and the well-leveraged star players are not dancing to the same tune, a lack of cohesiveness is sure to follow.

For the Clippers, this has been manifest in the backcourt. Alongside the George and Leonard frontcourt is now the Russell Westbrook and James Harden backcourt. It is not working. And while they will never publicly come out and say it – for every possible reason – the tales told outside of school confirm what seems already obvious from the outside; this is not the backcourt that the front office would have wanted. Indeed, neither half of it is.

It is not intended as disrespect towards Westbrook when describing his acquisition as being an unwanted one. Russ is far, far too disrespected as it is in the modern discourse – his imperfections as a player are wielded as a club against his reputation, as if the man who took Oscar Robertson’s once-untouchable triple-double season averages benchmark and somehow made it normal is anything less than a generational talent. Groupthink is a dangerous, palpable thing, and Russ is massively overly maligned for a player who is both very good and very popular.

That said, it is nonetheless fair to say that Westbrook joined the Clippers because their star players asked for the move to be made. With John Wall not working out and Reggie Jackson moving on, there was a vacancy at point guard at the same time that Westbrook became available, yet this does not mean that the architects of the frontcourt wanted him for the backcourt. Ultimately, the need to assuage those with the star power (and thus the leverage) saw Westbrook be brought in, despite the sub-optimal fit that could be seen a mile off (and which is already analysed at length elsewhere). And Westbrook only remains with the Clippers for now because there has not been a trade found for him yet.

Adding to this – or perhaps, compounding it – has been the high-profile trade for Harden, finally consummated at the start of the month, closing out a saga that had run on since time immemorial. This, simply, was a trade pushed for by the Clippers’ owner, Steve Ballmer. When the man who writes the cheques wants something done, it is up to the employees to get it done. It got done. And between the two moves, the de facto decision-makers became more like administrators.

What is undeniably true is that right now, the partnership is not working. As is so often the case, two players used to dominating the share of the ball are finding it difficult to play without it, even before factoring in George and Leonard (who, it must be remembered, are considerably better players by this point in their careers). The Clippers are losing the Harden trade, and it was not difficult to see it coming.

Superstar players having significant say in roster decisions rarely works out. Nor do owners making the decisions unilaterally. There is nuance to roster construction, and while the input of both parties can be valuable, it is dangerous when it is elevated. There is an art to cohesive basketball roster construction both on and off the court that requires a cohesive vision from all parties to achieve.

Take it from me, a commentator and writer who can only dream about having such a career, buoyed by the unshakable confidence that a lack of accountability brings. We all knew this wouldn’t work, didn’t we?