The 5: Real talk, posses and the Los Angeles Clippers

November is one of my favorite months of the year for sports. Or it’s just one of my favorite months. Probably both. The weather is great, just starting to get cool as browning leaves fall to the ground. Winter is around the corner, as are the holidays. Sports are getting real. The NFL season is fully formed, the NHL year is starting, and the NBA is taking shape. For someone who doesn’t really care about baseball (unless he loves it), November’s got it all. It helps that the mainstream sports media is talking about games. No predictions or prognosticating about what could be, just (usually) what has been and what is.

That’s why when I turned on ESPN or Fox Sports 1 (or, more accurately, accidentally came across them) and saw white guys talking about whether or not that word “posse” is racist I was pretty peeved. Rather than talk about why Phil Jackson’s comments were hurtful, people paid to talk about sports in an extremely unimportant way were more unimportantly talking about definitions.

That approach is easily consumable and the kind of fodder for semi-comfortable water cooler conversation (“Hey, Jim, isn’t LeBron overreacting? Because Skip Bayless said…”) that drives people back toward their TV sets. Talking about whether or not someone should be offended is easier than talking about why they are offended and doesn’t make for good water cooler conversation (“Hey, Jim, do you think using the word ‘posse’ to describe a black man’s friends and business partners is especially insensitive given the state of the country?”). It makes people uncomfortable. Makes them change the channel.

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Still, a former NFL tight end trying to explain the definition and history of a word like a judge at a spelling bee makes about as much sense as Don Lemon doing play-by-play for Monday Night Football. More importantly, and probably more consequential, is the fact that debating the definition distracts from the real issue. LeBron James was affected by Jackson’s comments, and understanding why — and how that can apply to daily living in our country — could have been a worth-while endeavor. Especially when you consider how much time the mainstream media took away from talking about actual games to just read from the dictionary.

Are they real?

The reason national sports media exists is because people hate not knowing things. They hate being left out of the conversation about the game the next day. Jim watched the game, and you didn’t. Now Jim is talking to the boss about the game. You hate Jim. So Sports Center was created as a nightly briefing of what happened that day in the world of sports. In an increasingly busy world that seems to provide fewer hours in a day every passing year, people now hardly have time to form their own opinions.

Enter the “embrace debate” culture of sports media and devil’s advocate sports columnists. They know you are much too busy with a job and friends and family and fun to take the time to look up NBA.com’s clutch stats or stay up until midnight watching basketball, but you can turn on the TV and have someone spoon feed you a ready-made opinion as you hunch over a microwave meal. It’s easy, efficient and entirely useful. It’s also why we ask things like: Are the Los Angeles Clippers for real?

The Clippers have one of the best records in basketball, but we’ve seen this before. The Clippers have won 50 games in each of the last four seasons but has failed to get past the Conference Semifinals.

More than wanting to know, we don’t want to be fooled. The Zach Lowes analyze, the Mike Wilbons debate, the bloggers blog. “Are they real?” is just a way to direct our conversations about what we’re seeing and raise the stakes.  Are the Clippers real? Are the Atlanta Hawks real? Can they beat the Golden State Warriors or Cleveland Cavaliers? In other words, should I care?

Rumors

Earlier this week Brian Scalabrine, a former Boston Celtics player and Warriors assistant coach, talked on his radio show about a possible trade involving Klay Thompson and the Celtics. It would be a three-way deal sending Thompson to Boston, Nerlens Noel, Avery Bradley and either Jay Crowder or Amir Johnson to the Warriors, and the Brooklyn Nets’ pick to the Philadelphia 76ers. Given Scalabrine’s connection to both the major teams involved, the rumor obviously caught on.

It wasn’t until later that Scalabrine admitted he had read the idea on a less-than-credible website and that it was completely unfounded. Still, it was enough to give the idea some legs. People started thinking about whether or not the Warriors should trade Thompson and start to evaluate if Durant’s addition is having limited returns.

The Warriors are playing at a pace of 103.3 possessions per 48 minutes, have an offensive efficiency of 113.7 points per 100 possessions and are making 11.7 3s per game at a 37.4 percent clip, per NBA.com. Last season’s Warriors played at a pace of 101.7, had an offensive efficiency of 112.5 and made 13.1 3s a game at an insane 41.6 percent clip. Meanwhile, they are giving up 61.7 percent of shots to opponent’s at the rim — near the worst in the league — and are a bottom-10 defense. They could use some added defense.

Trading Thompson now would be incredibly immature but, hey, whoever came up with the idea has some good points.

Durant vs. Drake

I like Drake. I feel like he’s one of the realest rappers out there (ghost writer or not). I just feel like I know his life. Like, I know one of his girlfriends felt uncomfortable walking around his house naked because he always had people over. I know that from one of his songs. I feel like he reads basketball Twitter and knew that wearing a Doris Burke shirt would make him the topic of the internet for a night. I think he has dope beats. For these reasons, I like Drake.

The Warriors also like Drake. He’s apparently friends with the team, and we saw him gabbing with Kevin Durant from the sideline when the Warriors visited the Toronto Raptors Wednesday.

Everything was hunky-dory. The Warriors were winning, Drake felt included and everyone was just happy to be there (except the Raptors players, but whatever). Then, after the game…

WAIT! Does Durant have beef with Drake?!

Durant is one of the hardest players in the league to get a read on. That’s why it was so shocking when he decided to sign with the Warriors in the first place. All evidence would suggest that he has no problem with Drake, and that he has a terrific poker face. But, I’ll admit, he had me fooled.

Should You Care?

So, are the Clippers real?

Yes, the Clippers are real. They can challenge the Warriors in the Western Conference. I don’t know the last time a team without a top 10 defense won the championship, but it’s been long enough to say it’s been forever. The last team we thought had a chance but didn’t have a top 10 defense was the 2013-2014 Miami Heat (who were ranked 11th) and they got creamed by the San Antonio Spurs in the Finals.

The Clippers have the best defenses in basketball, per NBA.com, and when Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan are your 1 and 5 that is certainly sustainable. Especially when Blake Griffin is trying his darndest to clean up his public image and guys like Luc Mbah a Moute, Wesley Johnson and Austin Rivers have developed into fine defenders. Their top-five offense is nothing new in the Chris Paul-era, who is making an early case for MVP.

Meanwhile, the Warriors have zero rim protection and have fallen to the bottom of the league in defense while its offense is just a smidge better than last season. The Warriors will figure out its defense, even if its not as good as last season, but with two dominant bigs the Clippers have the ingredients that helped last season’s Oklahoma City Thunder push the Warriors and the Cavaliers beat them. The Warriors’ moves this summer, if anything, made that weakness even more glaring.

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I don’t know if the Clippers will beat the Warriors or if they’ll fall flat on their face again. No one knows what’s real, but the conversation at least is. Often times, that’s more important anyway.