CLIPPERS, RIVERS FACE CROSSROADS
Every NBA team faces tough roster decisions when summer rolls around.
But when it comes to the Los Angeles Clippers, this might be the most fascinating situation of the offseason. This is the franchise sold to former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a record $2 billion in the summer of 2014, one that has been taking the blank-check approach to title contention ever since.
And, rest assured, from Ballmer to Clippers president of basketball operations and coach Doc Rivers on down, it will be viewed through the prism of these playoffs.
Come July 1, point guard Chris Paul, fellow All- Star Blake Griffin and sharpshooting guard J.J. Redick will join a free agent crop that will reap the benefits of the league’s unprecedented economic success. Yet with the Clippers’ surprising home loss to the Utah Jazz on Saturday in their first-round playoff series
opener applying early pressure again and Game 2 at Staples Center on Tuesday, the key question about their future creeps closer: After all the regular-season success and playoff failures, is it worth keeping this group together?
The Clippers’ price tag with all three players would be staggering next season, potentially nearing the $205 million mark paid by the Brooklyn Nets in 2013-14 that remains a league record, and growing larger from there because of annual raises and luxury tax. Paul, 31, and Griffin, 28, will be seeking maximum-salary contracts, deals that would respectively start at about $35 million and $30 million annually. Redick, a 32-year-old who was recruited by Rivers not long after he arrived from the Boston Celtics in the summer of 2013, is sure to land a massive payday, too. Working projections peg the total at about $196 million in all, with $140 million in salaries and $56 million in luxury tax (and Redick, in that scenario, having a starting salary of about $18 million).
At the center of it all is Rivers, a 55-year-old who sounds hopeful that Ballmer will pay up yet again when the time arrives in a few months.
“Here’s my argument to (the question of whether all that luxury tax is worth it),” Rivers, who is three years into a five-year deal worth more than $50 million, told USA TODAY Sports recently. “Let’s say we don’t win this year — which I think we will, ( but) let’s say we don’t. Do you give up on a 50-win team that has proven that they’re really close (to winning it all), or do you hang in there and keep trying to maybe make changes around (the core)?
“I always use Utah as a great (example). Thank God Karl Malone and (John) Stockton didn’t listen to people, you know what I mean? They fell (in the playoffs) and kept trying and kept trying. And finally, late in their careers, they finally broke through to the Finals. They didn’t win it (all). But you know, that’s the pursuit. I just think it’s so easy to (say), ‘Hey, they should break up,’ from the outside. And I think that’s such an easy opinion.”
Any way you look at it, this is a tough call.
On the one hand, the Clippers boast a dynamic core of talent that has earned the league’s thirdbest winning percentage since Rivers came to town (.662). On the other, their inability to survive the second round is wellchronicled and they’re now in danger of falling out in the first round for the second consecutive postseason (to be fair, Paul and Griffin both suffered season-ending injuries in Game 4 of their six-game first-round series loss to Portland last season). And then there’s the elephant-in-the-room factor: age.
Among Paul, Griffin, Redick and the other four Clippers who have guaranteed contracts for next season and who played significant minutes this season (DeAndre Jordan, Jamal Crawford, Austin Rivers and Wesley Johnson), their average age when free agency arrives will be 30.3. According to RealGM.com, the Clippers and defending champi- on Cleveland Cavaliers had the oldest rosters in the league for the 2016-17 season (29.9).
Yet for as much sway as Rivers has been given in roster construction since signing, Ballmer — like every other majority owner, let alone an owner who has a 100% stake in the team — will have the final say. And that’s where it could get complicated.
What if Ballmer and Rivers don’t see eye to eye on this front? There have been recent rumblings about Rivers’ future, with him recently rebutting an ESPN report that indicated he might reunite with the Orlando Magic (he first became a head coach there in 1999 and remained through 2004, and the Magic recently fired general manager Rob Hennigan). It’s worth keeping an eye on the Atlanta Hawks situation as well, as Rivers spent his first eight seasons there as a player, coached Hawks minority owner Grant Hill during his time in Orlando and could draw interest in a front office role if their postseason falls flat.
For Rivers’ part, he’s ignoring the speculation that always surfaces this time of year and taking pride in the way this Clippers season has gone.
Not only did the team endure significant injuries to Paul and Griffin en route to winning 51 games and secure the fourth seed in the brutal Western Conference, but the depth that he and executive vice president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank made such a priority last summer played a big part.
“I think from a front office perspective, we passed that (offseason test) with flying colors, you know?” Rivers said. “With Raymond (Felton) and Austin and Jamal (all signing), Chris has been surrounded ( by other guards). He doesn’t have to guard the best guy every night. He hasn’t had to do all the ballhandling duties all year. So in a lot of ways, we’ve done that with Chris, and that’s why we did it.
“From a GM standpoint, and a president (of basketball operations) standpoint, you’re thrilled for (Austin, who signed a threeyear, $35 million deal), for the franchise, because it turned out to be a good move for us. (Rivers, who has yet to play in the postseason because of a hamstring injury, averaged 12 points and 2.8 assists per game while setting career highs in shooting percentage). Having said that, I have the same pride, like, in Raymond. Raymond had a great year for us. The numbers may not show that, but he has been absolutely wonderful for us. Mo Speights (too). So we’ve had a pretty good summer, with minimum contracts in some cases. But now, you shorten your rotations, and now the time is where everyone — like I said yesterday — the playoffs come down to the great players playing great and the role players playing a role and doing a great job at that. When you do that, you usually have some success.”
And if you don’t, as Rivers well knows, the question looms large about whether it’s time to reconsider.