The Clippers should not be this good without Kawhi. Update: Kawhi to return Jan 4th vs the Hawks

[bledredwine]

Jvg was one of the best coaching hires of the summer. The way Lac is defending he has a huge imprint no doubt

I maintain that the van Gundy's are two of the most underrated and most irrationally hated coaches in NBA history.
They've overachieved so many times.

[og15]

Harden is numero "UNO" in both off-ball and on-ball gravity. Which is a short way of saying the clippers might be winless without harden lol, and harden is shooting his worst percentages to start a season.. crazy high floor raising ability by james harden in yr. 16

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

Harden is important for the teams ability to succeed, but this isn't a case of Harden carrying the Clippers as some lone guy.

The Clippers put together a bunch of solid young vets who can defend and added multiple guys who can do some ball handling and complimentary playmaking.

The Clippers Ortg with Harden: 112.0
Clippers Ortg without Harden: 108.6

Harden has done his best at his age, but this isn't any sort of carry situation. Clippers have a below average offense, they have not too far off production from the no Harden units. The teams main calling card is defense.

Before last night, they held 5 straight opponents under 105 ppg (4 under 100) with an average of 96.8 ppg and 43/27 shooting. They are 6th in Drtg. They've scored 120+ twice all season. No opponent has scored over 105 in a win so far.

ok but remmeber when the clippers went on that run, and ryen russilo was praising norman powell.. ( as he should have) but 4 outta the past 5 games powell was ghost and the clippers didnt miss a beat, in fact their defense looked even more scary without powell out there. So are you saying kris dunn, or kpj would be slicing and dicing defenses with his passing like harden has been doing this szn. If fact without harden.. WHO WOULD BE RUNNING THE CLIPPERS OFFENSE".. kpj, dunn, powell, bones lol. THIS IS WHY I LOVVVVEEE BBALLINDEX. Because regardless of how they get their formula it 95% of the time, matches the eye-test. Prior to bballindex, i followed 538 raptor lol and of course espn got rid of it because it was attracting too much attention during the 2023 embiid vs jokics mvp battle that year.

These podcasters are counting on casuals to listen to them and take their words as truth, but when that person can go look up the best players for themselves it kinda makes their talking points fall on def ears. ESPN/FS1 regardless of what they tell you need for steph to be better than harden. This is why the nba media voters in my opinion colluded to make sure harden didnt win mvp in 2017 because the prior year in 2016 they voted to keep him off all-nba, so if they did the right thing and voted harden for mvp then it would be a bad look on the game of basketball 25 years from now

The nba voters went againist their criteria to avoid giving the nba to harden and in the process screwed up the mvp award and the criteria going forward, which is why last szn you had luka and the mavs toiling in the play-in/8th seed for 90% of the szn crying about "luka was robbed" lol. Now any and everyone believes they should win mvp smh, jokic winning over embiid as a 6th seed because he was the best player, but according to 538 raptor and epm harden was clearly the best player in 2019 so by the logic if applying the same criteria to the 2022 mvp battle between jokic and embiid then giannis being a higher seed shouldnt matter when harden was THE BEST PLAYER

Sorry, I don't watch an ESPN shows and don't listen to any of these podcasters you are mentioning, so most of this means nothing to me lol

[NBA4Lyfe]

Harden is important for the teams ability to succeed, but this isn't a case of Harden carrying the Clippers as some lone guy.

The Clippers put together a bunch of solid young vets who can defend and added multiple guys who can do some ball handling and complimentary playmaking.

The Clippers Ortg with Harden: 112.0
Clippers Ortg without Harden: 108.6

Harden has done his best at his age, but this isn't any sort of carry situation. Clippers have a below average offense, they have not too far off production from the no Harden units. The teams main calling card is defense.

Before last night, they held 5 straight opponents under 105 ppg (4 under 100) with an average of 96.8 ppg and 43/27 shooting. They are 6th in Drtg. They've scored 120+ twice all season. No opponent has scored over 105 in a win so far.

ok but remmeber when the clippers went on that run, and ryen russilo was praising norman powell.. ( as he should have) but 4 outta the past 5 games powell was ghost and the clippers didnt miss a beat, in fact their defense looked even more scary without powell out there. So are you saying kris dunn, or kpj would be slicing and dicing defenses with his passing like harden has been doing this szn. If fact without harden.. WHO WOULD BE RUNNING THE CLIPPERS OFFENSE".. kpj, dunn, powell, bones lol. THIS IS WHY I LOVVVVEEE BBALLINDEX. Because regardless of how they get their formula it 95% of the time, matches the eye-test. Prior to bballindex, i followed 538 raptor lol and of course espn got rid of it because it was attracting too much attention during the 2023 embiid vs jokics mvp battle that year.

These podcasters are counting on casuals to listen to them and take their words as truth, but when that person can go look up the best players for themselves it kinda makes their talking points fall on def ears. ESPN/FS1 regardless of what they tell you need for steph to be better than harden. This is why the nba media voters in my opinion colluded to make sure harden didnt win mvp in 2017 because the prior year in 2016 they voted to keep him off all-nba, so if they did the right thing and voted harden for mvp then it would be a bad look on the game of basketball 25 years from now

The nba voters went againist their criteria to avoid giving the nba to harden and in the process screwed up the mvp award and the criteria going forward, which is why last szn you had luka and the mavs toiling in the play-in/8th seed for 90% of the szn crying about "luka was robbed" lol. Now any and everyone believes they should win mvp smh, jokic winning over embiid as a 6th seed because he was the best player, but according to 538 raptor and epm harden was clearly the best player in 2019 so by the logic if applying the same criteria to the 2022 mvp battle between jokic and embiid then giannis being a higher seed shouldnt matter when harden was THE BEST PLAYER

Sorry, I don't watch an ESPN shows and don't listen to any of these podcasters you are mentioning, so most of this means nothing to me lol

Understood, but unfortunately these are the “same basketball experts” that have voting privileges to select the mvp or all-nba.

Harden is in yr 16( currently top 3 in wins above replacement) and ONLY has a total of 7x all-nba selections to his name. So this same media is essentially saying that out of 16 years of hardens career he was only a top 15 player only 7 times smh

[Jabroni Lames]

Clippers have a worse ORTG than the Toronto Raptors, for example. They're tied with the Pistons for 23rd overall, and barely above the Hornets. I mean, technically you *could* call it a Harden carry job (because of his high USG & AST%) ... but he's not carrying them very far on offense.

Clippers are winning with defense and coaching.

[madmaxmedia]

This happens every year. Kawhi s out and clippers do fine, then Kawhi is in and they still don't take the next step. Maybe he's not as good as people think he is, doesn't make his teammates better. Clippers teamates seem to play their best when he's out of the lineup.

I still think they end up as the 7th or 8th seed.

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

[madmaxmedia]

Clippers have a worse ORTG than the Toronto Raptors, for example. They're tied with the Pistons for 23rd overall, and barely above the Hornets. I mean, technically you *could* call it a Harden carry job (because of his high USG & AST%) ... but he's not carrying them very far on offense.

Clippers are winning with defense and coaching.

For sure their defense is better than their offense, but man they just won 3 games in a row without Norm Powell. I don't remember who they played, but Harden is the glue, duct tape, smoke, and mirrors holding things together at the offensive end for them this season.

[OkcSinceSGA]

This happens every year. Kawhi s out and clippers do fine, then Kawhi is in and they still don't take the next step. Maybe he's not as good as people think he is, doesn't make his teammates better. Clippers teamates seem to play their best when he's out of the lineup.

I still think they end up as the 7th or 8th seed.

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

This is exactly why Kawhi has to go. They depend every year on a guy who is 80% likely to not be healthy for a playoff run. Making them a treadmill team.

[NBA4Lyfe]

Clippers have a worse ORTG than the Toronto Raptors, for example. They're tied with the Pistons for 23rd overall, and barely above the Hornets. I mean, technically you *could* call it a Harden carry job (because of his high USG & AST%) ... but he's not carrying them very far on offense.

Clippers are winning with defense and coaching.

Harden is still getting the best defender every night, and harden is using his gravity (currently best in the league) to get his teammates open shots.

Also the defense can still be top 5 but if you don’t have the point guard play to be able to generate and open shot EVERY Possession in the half court, then your teams defense being top 5 is a moot point if you can’t score consistently

Read on Twitter

?s=46

[Jabroni Lames]

Clippers have a worse ORTG than the Toronto Raptors, for example. They're tied with the Pistons for 23rd overall, and barely above the Hornets. I mean, technically you *could* call it a Harden carry job (because of his high USG & AST%) ... but he's not carrying them very far on offense.

Clippers are winning with defense and coaching.

For sure their defense is better than their offense, but man they just won 3 games in a row without Norm Powell. I don't remember who they played, but Harden is the glue, duct tape, smoke, and mirrors holding things together at the offensive end for them this season.

But again, Harden "holding things together" isn't supported by the numbers when he sits. Clippers ORTG drops by -3.4 when Harden is on the bench. So, assuming their defense still holds, their net rating would drop to -2.2, instead of +1.2. That puts them between the Lakers (10-7) and the Nets (8-10). Basically, still a very solid .500 team without Harden, with defense and coaching actually holding things together.

To further illustrate his impact, Harden is only a +0.9 on court net rating and is actually a slight negative -0.2 on/off, when he sits, indicating the defense improves more than the offense he brings when he’s on the bench. He’s basically a break-even player at this point.

[madmaxmedia]

Clippers have a worse ORTG than the Toronto Raptors, for example. They're tied with the Pistons for 23rd overall, and barely above the Hornets. I mean, technically you *could* call it a Harden carry job (because of his high USG & AST%) ... but he's not carrying them very far on offense.

Clippers are winning with defense and coaching.

For sure their defense is better than their offense, but man they just won 3 games in a row without Norm Powell. I don't remember who they played, but Harden is the glue, duct tape, smoke, and mirrors holding things together at the offensive end for them this season.

But again, Harden "holding things together" isn't supported by the numbers when he sits. Clippers ORTG drops by -3.4 when Harden is on the bench. So, assuming their defense still holds, their net rating would drop to -2.2, instead of +1.2. That puts them between the Lakers (10-7) and the Nets (8-10). Basically, still a very solid .500 team without Harden, with defense and coaching actually holding things together.

Those are interesting stats, thanks. I guess we'll see what happens if/when James misses some full games.

[phanman]

This happens every year. Kawhi s out and clippers do fine, then Kawhi is in and they still don't take the next step. Maybe he's not as good as people think he is, doesn't make his teammates better. Clippers teamates seem to play their best when he's out of the lineup.

I still think they end up as the 7th or 8th seed.

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

This is exactly why Kawhi has to go. They depend every year on a guy who is 80% likely to not be healthy for a playoff run. Making them a treadmill team.

The team without Kawhi is also a treadmill team. With the contract they gave him this offseason, they are essentially stuck with him or are would have to trade him for another star with issues of their own. I don't see teams lining up to trade for a guy who still has 50m and 50.3m guaranteed after this season with him getting pulled from the Olympics and yet to make his RS debut.

At the end of the day, he still gives the Clips a long shot chance at being contender because of simply how good he is when in uniform. Those two games against Phoenix in 23 is both the ultimate tease and ceiling raiser that they have right now. I disagree with maxmaxmedia with him not being a playmaker as it was an area of improvement with him increasing his assists up to 5ast while slightly decreasing his turnovers before he tore his ACL and the team brought in Russ and then Harden.

[falcolombardi]

Read on Twitter

Pretty ridiculous. They are the 4th ranked defense after tonight, maybe even 3rd. I knew they would be a top 5 defense but not 5th seed about 17 games in. Zero games from Kawhi, no Powell last couple games. They are 10-7 and half of their wins have been vs more talented teams.

Warriors 2x, Kings 2x, Nuggets, Magic are their better wins, all pretty convincingly for the most part.

They are really putting the screws to opposing stars. They have been up by double digits every single game besides one (a few they choked late to more talented teams). They’ve won several by blowout margins over good teams. They are 2-0 vs the Warriors who are the #1 seed.

Tonight they held the Kings who had been scorching hot on offense the prior few to 29 in the first half, the lowest for an NBA game this season.

Did you expect them to compete to this level without Kawhi?

for all intents and purposes they were without kawhi in 2024 so is not that surprising

They have maintained their level without paul george, who we knew while stilll good, was past his best (and they have good wings who have absorbed well the rise in load like norm powell)

[madmaxmedia]

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

This is exactly why Kawhi has to go. They depend every year on a guy who is 80% likely to not be healthy for a playoff run. Making them a treadmill team.

The team without Kawhi is also a treadmill team. With the contract they gave him this offseason, they are essentially stuck with him or are would have to trade him for another star with issues of their own. I don't see teams lining up to trade for a guy who still has 50m and 50.3m guaranteed after this season with him getting pulled from the Olympics and yet to make his RS debut.

At the end of the day, he still gives the Clips a long shot chance at being contender because of simply how good he is when in uniform. Those two games against Phoenix in 23 is both the ultimate tease and ceiling raiser that they have right now. I disagree with maxmaxmedia with him not being a playmaker as it was an area of improvement with him increasing his assists up to 5ast while slightly decreasing his turnovers before he tore his ACL and the team brought in Russ and then Harden.

Unless another team really steps up with a decent offer, I also think the most logical outcome is to keep him and just hope for the best.

To clarify- I don't mean to say he can't playmake or help facilitate for teammates, but his main contribution is simply thereally efficient and consistent production he brings to the team. The ball is a little stickier with him than it was with PG, OTOH he rarely picks up his dribble in traffic and needs bailing out. He's much more consistent a scorer than Harden and PG, and he'd be the Clippers' rock but for his health.

[Vampirate]

This happens every year. Kawhi s out and clippers do fine, then Kawhi is in and they still don't take the next step. Maybe he's not as good as people think he is, doesn't make his teammates better. Clippers teamates seem to play their best when he's out of the lineup.

I still think they end up as the 7th or 8th seed.

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

This is exactly why Kawhi has to go. They depend every year on a guy who is 80% likely to not be healthy for a playoff run. Making them a treadmill team.

They are trapped for the foreseeable future with basically no draft capitol or cap room. Kawhi's trade value diminishes more with every injury and age.

It's a make the best of what you have and hope Kawhi isn't injured when the playoffs roll around scenario.

[madmaxmedia]

Their ceiling has always been far higher with a healthy Kawhi. They've had moments without him, but more in a 'gutty overachiever' way than anything else. They went on that 26-5 run last season with him, and collapsed in the playoffs without him. To your point though, he's not a playmaker/distributor type. And so I think Harden/Kawhi make for a better tandem than PG/Kawhi did.

We'll see what happens when Kawhi comes back. I think hypothetically a 100% healthy Kawhi turns this team into a pretty solid playoff team (but not one of the big boys or anything.)

This is exactly why Kawhi has to go. They depend every year on a guy who is 80% likely to not be healthy for a playoff run. Making them a treadmill team.

They are trapped for the foreseeable future with basically no draft capitol or cap room. Kawhi's trade value diminishes more with every injury and age.

It's a make the best of what you have and hope Kawhi isn't injured when the playoffs roll around scenario.

If they beat Houston in standings, they get to keep their 1st this year. If Kawhi comes back and plays say 50 games I think they can do it, and at least have a mid 1st this offseason. That would actually factor into any trade deadline moves this ASB I think.

[Jabroni Lames]

Need to make a similar thread about the Brooklyn Nets. 9-10. And they are in almost every game, even when they lose. Like WTF?

Jordi Fernandez has to be in the COTY discussion.

[OkcSinceSGA]

Need to make a similar thread about the Brooklyn Nets. 9-10. And they are in almost every game, even when they lose. Like WTF?

Jordi Fernandez has to be in the COTY discussion.

Not quite same tier of good, but yes they have also been better than expected 100%. The Clippers are getting to the point where we may need to start asking if somehow they can open the puncher’s chance contender convo for a 1-2 year run.

If Kawhi somehow comes back at last year’s level… and Mann gets back to his normal level… they legit are in the B tier group of contenders. It’s pretty much OKC, Cleveland and Boston in their own tier, then about 4-5 other teams with a puncher’s chance.

[SerialChiller]

“The system”

The clippers were picked to finish last in the league by these “high iq” podcasters lol

Harden is way too smart of a player to ever not dominate a game of basketball lol. Harden can manipulate defenses with his brain. Harden is what y’all think Luka is

The clippers might be winless if harden was not on this team. Which means in theory he should receive some “mvp votes” right lol. Yea that’s wishful thinking to ask these end of season voters to reward harden for carrying and leading this clippers team to wins every night as severe underdogs


This guy touched on a LITTLE bit of harden data that I already knew.

Watch on YouTube

;t=101s&pp=ygUqSGFyZGVuIGpzIHRoZSBtb3N0IGtldGhhbCBvZmZlbnNpdmUgcGxheWVy

Watch on YouTube

yep this guy is an absolute basketball genius! In all seriousness though he is pretty smart at figuring out ways to game the game and such. I don't really respect that kind of nonsense but it does take some smarts to pull off.

[SerialChiller]

When I first saw this thread title I half expected to see NBA4Lyfe as the OP who started it with an angle to praise Harden. Then when I saw it wasn't him I clicked on it to see how many pages it would take for him to show up and credit Harden with all of the Clippers modest success so far. The answer was a surprising 3 whole pages!

[OkcSinceSGA]

When I first saw this thread title I half expected to see NBA4Lyfe as the OP who started it with an angle to praise Harden. Then when I saw it wasn't him I clicked on it to see how many pages it would take for him to show up and credit Harden with all of the Clippers modest success so far. The answer was a surprising 3 whole pages!

I think it’s because anyone watching the team knows that while Harden has been huge with his gravity, playmaking and maybe most importantly leadership… Zubac and Dunn for example deserve the same praise. Dunn is now at a 3.0 EPM which is insane considering he doesn’t score.

He’s literally anchoring the Clippers defense with Zu, and the defense is what’s carried them. They are basically tied with the Warriors for the 4th ranked defense, but only the 22nd ranked offense.

Harden is 3rd on the team in EPM. If his shooting efficiency goes back up from a career low, he will likely get even more praise.