minnytola1960 wrote:It's crazy to me how much the narrative on the Clippers franchise has changed in just one year. A year ago, they were seen as a gritty franchise that had great leadership, culture and did things "the right way". They were truly on track to dethrone the poorly run, laughingstock Lakers as the kings of LA. Now, the Clippers are one more disappointing season away from being in arguably the worst and most humiliating position of all 30 NBA teams - star players leaving, no young prospects and no picks for nearly a decade. With the Lakers on the verge of winning the championship, it's a complete reversal of the outcomes most people expected for the LA teams.
Lakers are still 2 away and anything can happen. They looked seriously disinterested the other day, so they've used up their blah game of the series. That said, if they win 2 more, this would be the 3rd time that the Clips supposedly were the best team in LA since 1992. In 92 and 93, they and the Lakers were 7 and 8th seeds both years, respectively. So the Clips were marginally better than the post Showtime team w/ Threatt. Lakers got into the 92 playoffs on the last day of the season w/ a GW shot over the Clips by Threatt. Clips were an eyelash from humiliating the Lakers and dumping them out of the playoffs, but lost by 1 the final game that would've clinched the 8th seed for either LAL or HOU. Then you had the mid 2K teams.
For a couple years, the Lakers were Kobe and dreck and the Clips had the better support cast and record and the media and fans pushed that best in LA sh MUCH harder then than they even did this season. In the first week of 05/06, I vividly remember a national game where they had a whole pregame segment on how the Clips were great and Kobe's Lakers sucked and were a laughingstock, etc. Lo and behold, Clips didn't win zilch. In 06, they lost to the same PHX team that the Lakers lost to. Then this year. You think one of these times the Clips will finally push thru (past the Semis), but it's one of those things that you have to see to believe. It's amazing that the New Jersey Swamp Nets (a dump, not even the rebranded version) got to The Finals twice before the Clips got past the Semis. Nets would pump in crowd roars and you'd see everyone sitting on their hands. They were a clown franchise and still got to TF 2x. That kind of realization makes you think the Clipps are cursed. Lakers on verge of winning the title for the 6th time in the three periods that the Clips were the best team in LA (real or just called that to annoy LAL fans).
