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The LA Clippers are struggling at the moment. The Clippers have slipped to fifth in the Western Conference, behind the surging New Orleans Pelicans.

That has the team questioning their identity.

"We gotta find our identity," point guard James Harden said. "Teams are scoring easy on us. Makes it difficult to score offensively.

"It's a little frustrating ... I think we're all trying to figure out what the hell is going on."

Clippers coach Ty Lue had a more pointed observation of his team's identity at the moment.

"So identity for us, it's got to be toughness," Lue said. "Which means physicality, mental and physical toughness, a high-powered offense -- we can score in a lot of different ways -- and we got to have a defensive mindset.

"And so right now, do we have an identity? I think, yeah, we're soft."

Via Ohm Youngmisuk/ESPN

Unless your last name is Riley or Popovich, I'm not sure a coach should be making long term plans with a team if they are making statements like this. I could be wrong, but I'd bet there is a pretty strong correlation between statements where the coach blames the team (rightly or wrongly) and being fired.

IamSam wrote:Unless your last name is Riley or Popovich, I'm not sure a coach should be making long term plans with a team if they are making statements like this. I could be wrong, but I'd bet there is a pretty strong correlation between statements where the coach blames the team (rightly or wrongly) and being fired.

He's not shifting all blame to the players and absolving himself of responsibility, everything he's saying specifies the word "we" which includes both coaches and players and is perfectly logical and accurate.

i thought this team was supposed to win multiple championships by now. that's all i heard in 2019. 5 years later and they have nothing to show for it except aging former stars and no draft picks for a decade. flop city is the perfect name for this franchise

FeatheryTouch wrote:

IamSam wrote:Unless your last name is Riley or Popovich, I'm not sure a coach should be making long term plans with a team if they are making statements like this. I could be wrong, but I'd bet there is a pretty strong correlation between statements where the coach blames the team (rightly or wrongly) and being fired.

He's not shifting all blame to the players and absolving himself of responsibility, everything he's saying specifies the word "we" which includes both coaches and players and is perfectly logical and accurate.

Fair enough; let's see how it works out for him and the team.

IamSam wrote:Unless your last name is Riley or Popovich, I'm not sure a coach should be making long term plans with a team if they are making statements like this. I could be wrong, but I'd bet there is a pretty strong correlation between statements where the coach blames the team (rightly or wrongly) and being fired.

If this was middling team going no where, sure. But it wasn't too long ago that people considered the Clippers as one of the top contenders to win it all this season. This is veteran team they'll likely swallow their pride if they believe they can win the whole thing.

Not long ago Harden was twerking for respect after a nice run and clowning those who doubted them

He needs to just shut up and let the basketball speak

If you want your team identity to be toughness, don't build a team around soft players.

jmbish87 wrote:If you want your team identity to be toughness, don't build a team around soft players.

Well said.

jigga_man wrote:

IamSam wrote:Unless your last name is Riley or Popovich, I'm not sure a coach should be making long term plans with a team if they are making statements like this. I could be wrong, but I'd bet there is a pretty strong correlation between statements where the coach blames the team (rightly or wrongly) and being fired.

If this was middling team going no where, sure. But it wasn't too long ago that people considered the Clippers as one of the top contenders to win it all this season. This is veteran team they'll likely swallow their pride if they believe they can win the whole thing.

Eh... perhaps you are right. But, my observation is simply that, regardless of whether or not Ty Lue was including himself in the "we're soft" statement or not, it's generally not good when things get to the point where the coach has to stand and publically say something along these lines. And yeah, of course, if they manage to win it all, this all goes away. But if they don't?