MartinToVaught wrote:esqtvd wrote:Kawhi won one title as the 3rd-best player behind two Hall of Famers and the other because Kevin Durant was knocked out of the Finals by a horrific injury.
LOL, you're actually going to play the "Hall of Famers" and "injury" cards? Guess how your boy Doc got carried to his only championship in spite of his terrible coaching.
For the record, it wasn't the Hall of Famers clamping up LeBron in the 2014 Finals, it was Kawhi. So you're wrong again.
I'm never wrong, pumpkin. Everything I write you'll soon hear from Don MacLean on the postgame show or read in the paper tomorrow. While you were panicking, I was telling the board how we were still going to sign Kawhi. I predicted the Tobias trade to Philly. And even when I was wrong that never once made you right.
To your substance, such as it is:
Kawhi was still the 3rd best player on that championship Spurs team behind Parker and Duncan. Defending one of the GOATs in LeBron well, and scoring 14 ppg in both the regular season and the playoffs is great, but its hardly the stuff of legend. Kawhi was voted Finals MVP but it's on the order of Iguodola winning one, not Michael Jordan.
And I doubt anyone will argue seriously that Kawhi's Raptors would have beaten Curry's Warriors if they had Durant. Argue otherwise if you want to. But let's try to stay real--and factual.
I took out that part you objected to. The rest stands. BF mine.
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I've moved on. Doc's gone. You believe. Good for you. I don't.
Kawhi's a helluva player but the stench of the 3-1 collapse didn't leave town when the coach was fired. The people responsible for the biggest disgrace in Clipper history are still here.
And they don't seem to have learned a damned thing and that's MY beef. Alibis and excuses. This is word-for-word what I've been saying since the collapse, nothing that isn't obvious to the whole basketball world that isn't buying their BS either.
Asked about the disappointing finish to last season, Kawhi Leonard shifted the focus to the troubling start.
How he and Paul George were limited in training camp.
How the season was interrupted by the pandemic.
How three Clippers tested positive for COVID-19 when the team resumed practice.
“I think that all played a big role,” Leonard said Friday on a videoconference call.
Boo freaking hoo.
Technically, what Leonard said was true. Here’s what he missed: The NBA is a star-driven league and stars are expected to save their teams when unexpected problems emerge.
Leonard famously isn’t a man of many words, but some acknowledgment of his role in the Choke Job for the Ages would have served as a welcome introduction to a new era of accountability for the Clippers.
The Clippers don’t have an established culture of success like the San Antonio Spurs teams on which Leonard played. They don’t have a vocal leader like the Toronto Raptors had in Kyle Lowry in their championship season with Leonard.
The individuals most responsible for creating a winning environment will be Leonard and George, the sidekick whose propensity for making tone-deaf remarks has made him the subject of ridicule.
Andrew Greif, who covers the Clippers for this publication, reported that some players were bothered by the special freedoms afforded to Leonard and George. A recent story by the Athletic detailed the tensions.
Star players often receive preferential treatment in the NBA. That wasn’t the issue. The issue was that Leonard and George didn’t reciprocate by producing when it counted most.
Leonard single-handedly closed out the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, but faltered as the Clippers blew a three-games-to-one lead to the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference semifinal.
Leonard and George didn’t score a single point in the fourth quarter of their Game 7 loss. Leonard scored only two points in the second half on one-for-11 shooting.
Leading by example becomes difficult when the leaders in question disappear during gut-check time.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2020-12-04/clippers-kawhi-leonard-excuses-winning-nba-title
