LA Clippers: Eye for talent has kept franchise relevant for years

The LA Clippers have been one of the best teams during the past decade. Making the right decisions in terms of acquiring players is the reason why.

The LA Clippers are one of the teams that are best built to make it in the bubble but they have been involved in controversy lately. Players have been leaving left and right to deal with personal issues.

The Lou Williams situation has been highly talked about during the weekend. Williams left the bubble to tend to his personal matter but he was seen at Magic City in Atlanta enjoying dinner.

That has led to him being in quarantine for 10 days before he is ready to play once again. Doc Rivers voiced his displeasure about seeing the photo.

According to Tomer Azerly of Clutchpoints, Doc Rivers said this about the photo:

"“I can’t share much with his journey because I wasn’t on that journey with him. But he’s back here. Obviously those [photos] got out and that’s something we obviously didn’t enjoy seeing or liked.”"

The Clippers still played basketball on Saturday with 10 players and were still able to come out on top 105-100 against the Washington Wizards.

The Clippers were able to get scoring from Patrick Patterson who had 16 points and Terance Mann, Amir Coffey and Rodney McGruder all had 13 points. While a lot of players were out the Clippers were still able to get maximum effort out of bench players. This team has been able to win due to making the right decisions in terms of acquiring players.

To understand the continued success you have to first look at the drafting of Blake Griffin. Griffin was drafted first overall in the 2009 NBA draft. After that, the Clippers have had five seasons of winning 50 games. Before that, they had zero.

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The drafting of Blake Griffin changed the course of the franchise because it drew them to get great players around him and it drew them to get a legendary head coach like Doc Rivers to coach the team.

After the Clippers acquired Griffin they went out to get Chris Paul. The signing of Chris Paul laid the foundation of success in free agency that was necessary to get Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.

The Clippers have made great decisions in the acquisition of players ever since the Blake Griffin drafting. Acquisitions like J.J. Redick, Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers, Patrick Beverley, Lou Williams and Landry Shamet are all pieces that have helped Clippers teams of the last decade excel.

The performance on Saturday night was another great display of the depth that the Clippers teams have had through good selection of talent.

Patrick Patterson has revived his career with the LA Clippers after a couple of bad years with the Oklahoma City Thunder. Terance Mann had a great game even though he is a rookie. His development is key for the future of the Clippers. McGruder (3.2 points per game) and Coffey (2.2 points per game) were able to get 13 points for the team.

While these players have not been a big part of what the Clippers do they were still able to pace the Clippers for the win. Doc Rivers talked about the performance of the players.

According again to Clutchpoints’ Tomer Azerly:

"“They played great, they played hard,” head coach Doc Rivers said of the younger players after the win. “They’ve done that in our scrimmages in practice as well. Whatever lack of skill or talent they have, they make up for it with their effort, their execution, so very, very happy for those guys.”"

These players except for Patterson will be needed in the future. The Clippers do not have much draft picks due to the Paul George trade so it’s great to see that the future is bright.

The LA Clippers are a tough team and even without most of the team, they have shown the ability to win games. The postseason is when they will need everybody and in the chance that somebody goes down, the next man will step up.