The Lob City era is over for the Los Angeles Clippers. J.J. Redick opened up with incredible honesty to explain exactly why that era didn’t work out.
The opportunity was there for the Los Angeles Clippers to establish a true foothold in the L.A. sports landscape. They have finished with more wins than the Los Angeles Lakers for the last six seasons, but never managed to translate that into postseason success.
There are many things you can point to that resulted in the team coming up short in the playoffs. Injuries were one of the biggest factors, as Blake Griffin and Chris Paul suffered injuries at key times over the years.
You can also point to the failures of Doc Rivers as a general manager. While their starting lineup was incredibly successful, a lack of depth crippled their ability to maintain leads.
However, J.J. Redick, now with the Philadelphia 76ers, believes one of the biggest issues was with the relationships between players. On the Pardon my Take podcast, Redick said it was the pettiness between players that broke the team apart:
"“It’s weird to think what we had the potential to accomplish and what ultimately derailed that was pettiness. Like, Donald Trump-level pettiness.”"
Redick went on to explain why all prominent members of the team, for himself, Blake Griffin in Detroit, Chris Paul in Houston, and DeAndre Jordan in Dallas are no longer together:
"“I don’t know that we hate each other. I don’t know that. It was just passive aggressive bull-[expletive].”"
This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as there were times where the mutual frustration within the team was obvious to anybody watching. However, it is refreshing to see a player be so blunt and honest.
It also isn’t surprising to see a player point toward internal issues, rather than attribute coming up short to flaws with the roster. You enter every season thinking you have what it takes to win, regardless of whether or not that’s true.
Success can help heal a lot of wounds in sports. Kyrie Irving and LeBron James weren’t fond of each other from day one, but were able to get along as long as there was a chance for a championship. Who knows if the Clippers would have been able to get over their differences if they were able to put together a deeper playoff run?
The “Lob City” era was dealt its first blow was when Chris Paul was traded to the Houston Rockets. That move was shortly followed by Redick signing a one-year contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Blake Griffin was treated to a ceremony where he got to see the Clippers raise his jersey into the rafters before signing a new deal. However, that ended shortly later as he was traded to the Detroit Pistons at the deadline. Finally, the team lost DeAndre Jordan when he opted out of his contract to sign with the Dallas Mavericks.
The team is now faced with the challenge of creating a new identity. Tobias Harris was tremendous for L.A. last year, but he is far from a franchise cornerstone. They have promising young pieces in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jerome Robinson, but it’ll take time before we learn whether or not they can outperform their draft position.
Jerry West has helped maneuver the Clippers into a position where they can be free agent players in the coming years. They still can pitch being located in Los Angeles and West has an impressive resume as an executive. No matter what direction they go in their rebuild, they undoubtedly will put more emphasis on a healthy team culture to prevent repeating the mistakes of the past.