esqtvd wrote:madmaxmedia wrote:The drafting of Blake Griffin started our resurgence, but it took trading him to take it further up the ladder.
Chris Paul is a great player, but I never jived with him personality-wise.
Paul George has definitely redeemed himself after the 2019/20 season and playoffs. He’s not perfect but I enjoy rooting for him and this entire Clipper squad.
He was never loved by his teammates here but Chris brought the intensity and the focus of winning basketball that neither Blake nor DJ ever had. We had it briefly with Sam I Am, but that era passed in the blink of an eye before it had time to take hold in the org. Sam played only one full season here--that magic 2006 campaign--and parts of 2 others, only 176 games total in a Clipper uni.
And BTW, that Odom-Miles-QRich-Maggette-Brand bunch never even had a winning season. Amazing but true. Fool's gold.
As for PG, in writing this series and reviewing Clipper history, I'm appreciating what he's accomplishing more and more, This is not Kawhi's team, and maybe never was.
CP3 is intense but he also stifled and nerfed part of the offense as he over processed the offense, brought it to a crawl, and damn near eliminated the fast breaks and easy scoring opportunities. We had the high flying Blake and DJ in their primes and alot of that was wasted even though we were successful winning wise and always made the post season. I actually think we were "Lob City" before CP3 came. CP3 is a hall of famer no doubt but that team actually needed a run n gun point guard and a different head coach along with a real GM as Doc was doing both jobs at the time. Also there were so many times where we needed points from CP3 and he flat out refused to shoot the ball for some reason. I hear Suns fans mention this as well at times
Also wouldn't call the Brand, Odom, Miles, Richardson fools gold as those teams were fun to watch and had packed crowds. Still had to deal with Sterling and his ineptitude and I believe the team practiced in the hood at LA Southwest College at the time.